Tracing the Blurred Lines Where you Faded Away
by luukagu
Summary: After returning from Australia in the summer of 2014, Rin discovers that 11 year old Haru went missing shortly after he left. With Makoto, Nagisa and Rei, Rin sets out to find out what happened to Haru and uncover the truth behind his disappearance.
1. You Fade

**I don't like this fic I'm sorry.**

**There are better things you could be reading.**

* * *

><p><strong>Luuka:<strong> written whilst S1 of Free! was still airing, I couldn't beta it because I cried every time I did and it impaired my ability to think but I've got this now. I've got this.

The genres are: tragedy/mystery/suspense/supernatural/horror/psychological/friendship.

**Years: **I'm following the format that in 2014 Haru would be 17, in 2013 = 16, etc... which means that when Haru went missing (In this story he was 11) it would have been 2009.

Here's my timeline of basic events in the first chapter:

February 2nd 2009 – Rin's 11th birthday

June 17th 2009 – Rin's last evening with Haru

June 18th 2009 – Rin goes to Australia

June 30th 2009 – Haru's 11th birthday (same night Haru is reported missing.)

June 23st 2014 – Rin (aged 17) returns to Iwatobi (Also one week before Haru's 17th birthday)

(reference stuff to flick back to so the dates make sense.)

* * *

><p><strong>TRACING THE BLURRED LINES WHERE YOU FADED AWAY:<strong>

Rin could recall sunlight as it hit the ocean, sparkling atop the surface of the water.

It was the 17th of June 2009 and surprisingly bright, even for a summer evening: the beach was calm. The beach was quiet. Grains of sand slid between Rin's toes, waves rolled together and Haru was beside him; the rest of the world was still, or at the very least, faraway.

'I go to Australia tomorrow,' Rin mumbled, dipping his toes in the overlapping waves; the admission kneaded his stomach together in excitement, but he hid it because Haru didn't seem happy for him. The shadow of the sun sunk behind the sea and Rin had to squint when he looked across to Haru, as Haru's silhouette was blotted out by sunlight: the two of them were eleven years old. Rin didn't know it at the time, but this would be the last evening the two of them would spend together alive.

'It's not like I'm staying there,' Rin shrugged noncommittally. 'It's not like... not like I'll be gone _forever_. It's only five years-I'm coming back.'

Haru didn't answer-turning away.

'And I'll swim with you again,' Rin continued, determinedly. 'I'll come back and find you.' He grinned when Haru fixed his blue eyes on him in surprise. 'Will you wait?'

'Yeah,' Haru nodded.

'Then we'll definitely meet again! Haru, I know it; I feel like we're connected!'

* * *

><p><em>I feel like we're connected?<em>

Seventeen year old Rin grimaced from his seat in the train to Iwatobi, turning his head over in his hands as he looked out of the window.

_I had a lot of weird stuff going through my head back then... well, I was just a kid: and Haru was an important friend._

A stuffed dolphin sat on Rin's lap, oblivious eyes and a stitched smile staring ahead at the opposite seat; the dolphin was a present Rin had brought back for Haru. Today was the 23th of June 2014: in seven days, it would be Haru's seventeenth birthday, so Rin would return to Haru's house for the first time in five years to meet with his best friend. Honestly, he was a little nervous: Rin didn't know if Haru wanted to see him again.

Haru hadn't emailed Rin since he'd gone to Australia and neither had he called nor wrote-Rin supposed this was because he was upset that Rin had left him all those years ago. Still, he had _missed_ Haru; he was looking forward to seeing him again. When the train stopped, he got off at the station, walked to Haru's house then knocked on the door and stepped back, drawing circles in the dirt with his trainers as he waited for someone to answer.

Eventually, an unfamiliar lady opened the door.

'Can I... help you?' She raised an eyebrow. For a reason he couldn't place, Rin suddenly felt sick to his stomach.

'Is uh... Haru here?' He asked. 'I'm a friend of his.'

'Haru...' the woman shook her head. 'I'm sorry, but no one by that name lives here. Perhaps you have the wrong house-what's the surname?'

'Nanase: Haruka... Nanase.'

There was a pause as the women thought, and when she spoke Rin was met with the worst possible response:

'Nanase? Wasn't that the name of the little boy who went missing five years ago?'

* * *

><p>In the summer of 2009, on the 8th of July, Haruka Nanase had gone missing.<p>

Rin had gone to Australia on the 17th of June 2000 aged 11, and arrived back on the 23rd in 2014, aged 17. Five years: that was how long Haru had been gone. Five years ago was the last time that anyone had heard from Haru-five years since anyone had saw him last, according to the Iwatobi library newspaper archive.

The last sighting of Haru came from his grandmother at 5:15pm on the 30th of June 2011, when Haru had come home from a day with Nagisa and Makoto; she'd scolded him for being late, and Haru had gone upstairs into his bedroom... and that was the last anyone had heard of him. The window had been opened and Haru was gone by the time she went upstairs to call him down at 8: those were the last records of Haru. Never again would anyone speak with him.

Haru's grandmother who had recorded poor health had passed away half a year after Haru's disappearance-the news had obviously come as a shock to her, and had taken away her will to keep going. Haru's parents worked abroad and refused interviews or press coverage-they never returned to Japan.

Nagisa and Makoto along with their parents and a handful of other children in Haru's class had all been taken in for questioning, and all of Haru's teachers, doctors and neighbours were interviewed. Island searches were conducted every day for three months and Iwatobi was patrolled by helicopters and police, but still, nothing was found: nobody knew where he went. Eventually, people stopped searching-eventually, people stopped caring. The rest of the world had to keep turning, and with it, Haru was left behind.

They never found a body so never held a funeral. Haru's school desk was cleared and his things were either thrown away or donated: his grandmother's house was reclaimed and sold, and everyone got on with their lives-everyone forgot about Haru. But Rin couldn't-he couldn't accept that Haru was gone. He couldn't believe that Haru would never come back again, because Haru had _said_ that he'd wait for him: he'd promised Rin five years ago that as long as Rin came to find him, Haru would be waiting. So, Rin would go and look for Haru, and he'd be the one to bring Haru back.

As Rin's fingers brushed over the faded print of Haru's name on the newspaper, he could almost see Haru in his head. He could almost hear his voice, repeating that he would wait, asking Rin to come and find him, like Rin had promised. Rin clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to think back to that evening on the beach with Haru and trying to pretend that for a moment, he wasn't gone...

But Rin couldn't shut his eyes that hard.

And the reality still remained that Haru wasn't coming back.

* * *

><p>It was the beginning of the summer holidays when Rin had returned to Iwatobi. Rin had enrolled in Samezuka Academy-an all-boys high school-and although he usually slept there, for the holidays he was staying in Iwatobi with his mother and sister. He had exams due Christmas, slightly behind on his ancient Japanese, but he knew he wouldn't be able to forgive himself until he at least <em>tried<em> to look for Haru-even if the efforts were hopeless, he knew that he couldn't rest until he made an attempt. So, he supposed he'd start at the beginning. Context: he needed context, which would involve going to the police station; Rin at least needed to know the basic facts so he could guess where to start looking.

'Nanase?'

The police receptionist-a bored looking lady who's lips swum in red paint-ran a finger through her hair.

'That case is an old one... it was five years ago, and cases close after eight. If you want information then you're better off going to a library and finding some old newspapers to sift through.'

Rin got the subtle hint to leave, but he wasn't about to go anywhere.

'I want to talk with one of the detectives,' he said. 'Someone who worked on finding him.'

'Do you have a new lead? Testimony?'

'N-not exactly... I just need to talk with someone- I think I could help, but I need to know where to start.'

The receptionist gave a tired sigh and reached for her telephone.

'Wait there,' she told Rin. 'I'll try and pull some strings, and see if I can get someone to come and talk to you. Don't be surprised if I _can't_.'

She spent three minutes tapping at her keyboard then another three on the phone, then...

'There's one member of staff who worked on Nanase's case here today,' she informed Rin. 'But they're not free until later. You can come back tomorrow, or-'

'No,' Rin said, shaking his head. 'I'll wait.'

Rin stayed in the police waiting room for three and a half hours: people came in, people went out-staff walked past, and-eventually-a door opened and a man called for Rin. He gestured for Rin to sit opposite him, flicking through a file as he spoke.

'What's your name?'

'Rin Matsuoka.'

'Matsuoka, huh...?' The officer's eyes skimmed a list. 'You're not documented on Nanase's records.'

'I didn't know he was missing until yesterday,' Rin begun, frustrated. 'Haru disappeared right after I left, I... I just found out that he was gone. I was in Australia the whole time he went away.'

'Australia sounds nice. You like it there?'

'Yes,' Rin replied, gritting his teeth-he'd come to the station to talk about Haru, and was getting impatient. The humidity wasn't helping, either-the small fan on the officer's desk barley did anything but push out hot air, and the sun was blazing down on him through the glass of the window.

'What happened to Haru?' Rin asked. 'Why did he disappear?'

The officer shrugged.

'That's what we want to know. Thousands of children go missing every year-Nanase could have been taken for any reason... if he was taken.'

'_If?'_

'There's no telling what happened on the night he went away-there's not enough evidence to say that he was kidnapped. It looks like Nanase climbed out of his window: he could have agreed to go away with someone. Children are very easy to coax-there may have been an older person involved, and Nanase had just been in an argument with his grandmother: he coulda ran out onto the road, gotten hit by a car then had someone dump his body...'

'No,' Rin shook his head, finding it difficult to sit here and take all of this in. He couldn't say what it was, but for some reason none of those suggestions felt _right_-none of them seemed to resonate with him, all too off-kilter. The officer lit a cigarette and took a puff.

'We had to consider Nanase's bio as well-he was a healthy, young boy- a lot of people commented on Nanase's love of swimming. Isn't it possible that he decided to go swimming on the night he disappeared and got swept away by the tide? It happens more than you'd think, and not always we can recover bodies lost at sea.'

Rin's hair fell over his face as he looked at his lap.

'Haru wouldn't do that...' he mumbled. 'He's not an idiot! When I was with Haru before he disappeared, he fell into a river and almost drowned-he doesn't like large bodies of water if they're not bathtubs or pools. And Haru wasn't stupid enough to jump in the ocean in the middle of the night on his own-'

'Not even for someone else? Not even if he dropped something in, or spotted a person out there?'

Rin swallowed. Underneath his cool demeanour, Haru_ had_ been the caring type, but still, again, the words weren't resonating: a part of him just wasn't confident that any of those things had happened.

'Do you have any evidence?' Rin asked, his voice shaking-talking about Haru's death made him feel wound up. 'Do you have any evidence regarding_ any_ of those things-'

'None, but-'

'Then how can you _say _them!?' Rin snapped, feet firm on the ground as he kicked the chair and stood. 'How can you give up on the case, just because one of those things _might_ have happened to Haru-'

'I'm going to have to ask you to quieten down or leave,' the officer said quietly, and Rin clenched his fists around the edge of the table-small drops begun to fall onto its surface, making pitter patters and splashes.

'Reopen the investigation,' Rin ordered the officer. 'You have to start looking -you _have _to keep searching!'

'Listen to me.' The officer spoke gently, picking up Rin's chair and helping him to sit. 'As much as I would love to reopen Nanase's case, it just wouldn't be beneficial; we don't have any leads. Cases close after eight years, and Nanase has been gone for five: most of his investigation team have retired, previous inquiries have been unrewarding, interviews have revealed nothing and we don't have any evidence. Even if we had the time and resources to spare on his case, we just wouldn't know what to do with them-the full investigation five years ago told us nothing.'

'Then the police missed something,' Rin answered. 'You have to try again-you have to look harder this time! There must be _someone_ out there who knows... you just have to find them... you just have to keep looking...'

'You obviously feel very strongly for Nanase, so I imagine this is very difficult for you,' the officer begun, tenderly. 'What was your relationship with Nanase-were the two of you in love?'

'I don't see how that's relevant-I just want Haru to come home! Why aren't you helping me?' Rin snapped. 'Why doesn't anyone seem to care that he's gone?!'

'Matsuoka... was it?'

A hand came to rest on his shoulder.

'I'm sorry... you're not going to like hearing this, but as things are, we've done all that we can-you're going to have to accept that Haruka probably isn't coming back.'

Rin blinked back tears furiously.

'No...' he mumbled. 'That isn't true. Haru's still out there... he is... I know he is-'

'Here,' the officer pulled out a small square of paper, sliding it across the desk to Rin. 'You can have this-it might make you feel better.'

'What is it?'

'A copy of a photograph of Haruka-the last one documented to have been taken.'

Rin extended a hand hesitantly and turned over the photograph. It had been cropped, but it was a relay photograph from when Rin had swum with eleven year old Haru, and he looked exactly as Rin remembered: blue eyes were narrowed into a serious expression and his short, dark hair was swept over his face, drops caught in the neat strands from where he'd just finished swimming, a crop of Rin's arm around his shoulder. When Rin looked at the photograph, something inside of him broke and he couldn't cry, any more: numb-he just felt numb. Too numb to feel, so all he could do was _ache._

'I don't want it,' Rin said, pushing it back across the table.

It wasn't the real thing.

* * *

><p>The police station had been a dead end: Rin didn't know what he'd expected, as it had been a hollow hope at best. He didn't have a plan-he didn't know what he was going to do. If police helicopters and search teams couldn't find Haru, then Rin didn't know why he'd thought <em>he<em> could.

_Why Haru?_ Rin asked, concentrating. _Why did Haru go away? If someone did take him, then why Haru specifically-what is it that's so different about him, compared to all of the other boys in this town?_

Rin could think of several reasons why Haru was special, but they were all very personal to him: Haru had been an attractive boy, sure, but there had been a lot of those around Iwatobi: Iwatobi was an area that encouraged sports, so there were a lot of fit children and teens, all of them running around practically unattended, easy to snatch. Had something been different about Haru? Or was his disappearance a random snatching-would any child have done, and Haru had just been unlucky? Either way, Rin didn't know: he felt useless. Incomplete. Haru's birthday present bobbed up and down in his backpack as he walked.

Three more days passed and all of them Rin passed searching, asking around about Haru. He asked shops around the beach, knocked on stalls and boathouses, but the result was the same. Some people were sympathetic toward him, and some were rude because Rin was _bothering_ them: they didn't have time to feel sorry for a missing boy-they all had their own lives to get on with.

The summer sun had never seemed so hateful, Rin thought, as he dragged his legs along the beach, gathering his thoughts in clusters.

_On the evening Haru disappeared from his bedroom, Nagisa and Makoto's newspaper interviews started that Haru had just gotten back from meeting with them: if Haru had planned to go somewhere else at 6p.m, then he wouldn't bother coming home at 5:15 to his grandmother-the fact that he went back meant that Haru didn't intend to go out that night._

_So, what changed? What made him leave? Was Haru really upset because his grandmother yelled at him? Haru's grandmother was stern, but she loved him more than anything, and Haru knew that-and it doesn't sound like Haru to get upset over something like that-he was never that trivial..._

So then, Haru must have found something when he got to his bedroom that told him to go away. What was it? Haru didn't have a cell phone: he'd been just eleven years old. Did someone leave him a letter? Was there a call on the house phone-or did Haru notice something from his window? Or, _was_ Haru kidnapped: he didn't go out of the front door, after all-well, his grandmother had lectured him, so he couldn't have...

Thinking about it _hurt._ Rin's thoughts went around in circles, and he couldn't come up with anything new. Haru's bedroom: Rin wanted to go to Haru's old bedroom, but somebody else had bought his house-Rin knew he couldn't just knock on a stranger door and ask to rifle through their bedroom, but there was a slot-a crack between the closet and the wall; that Haru had shown Rin where he would hide things: Rin was sure that if Haru had received something and he didn't want anyone else to find it, then he would have hidden it there; a place hidden so discretely among the houses structure that Rin doubted even the police would have been able to get to it.

So, Rin wanted to go back and see... which probably meant breaking in.

The light was lessening, and Rin's throat felt sore. He stopped in a small café, selecting an energy drink from the fridge, when...

'Rei-chan, tell the one about the squid! Noooo, about the orange one: how it came right up to the glass!'

_Wait... that voice! That sounds like..._

'_Nagisa_?' Rin blurted out, spinning around. In a corner of the café-around a table at the back-was sixteen year old Nagisa, older Makoto and another person... one whom Rin didn't recognise. Nagisa had grown up but Rin still couldn't mistake him: the loud, enthusiastic voice, the pink eyes and blond hair-on any other occasion, Rin was sure that Nagsia would have jumped into his arms, but this time he seemed to shrink slightly-as if he felt slightly guilty.

'Rin-chan!' He called-although awkwardly. 'Come... come over and sit with us!'

It wasn't necessary, as Rin was already making their way over to their table-Makoto spun around to face him: he, too, seemed mildly shocked.

'R-Rin...!' he flushed. 'You're back from Australia...'

'Yeah,' Rin balled his fingers into fists. 'You guys seem fine. Getting on with your lives.'

'A-ah...' Makoto looked at his lap. 'W-well, I... I guess you heard...'

'Why didn't you tell me?' Rin demanded. 'Why didn't you try and contact me-why didn't you tell me that Haru had just-gone away?!'

'Because you ignored us,' Nagisa, too, was looking down. 'Rin-chan... we _tried_ so hard to be your friend, but all you could ever see was Haru-whenever Haru was around, it was like we weren't even there! We didn't have any of your contact details, but we _tried_ to get through to you... we did...'

'And what about _him_?' Rin turned on the third person at the table: a tall, blue haired man with red frames and an embarrassed expression. 'Who is _he_ supposed to be? Is this Haru's replacement?'

'Rin-chan!' Nagisa flushed. 'It isn't like that!'

'We all feel bad for what happened!' Makoto explained, frantically. 'Rin... if we knew that Haru would have gone missing, we would have never let him go home that night... n-none of us could have predicted that Haru would have gone away-none of us could have known that he'd disappear! Don't you think it didn't affect us, too?!'

Makoto was right-they couldn't have known, and Haru's disappearance certainly wasn't their fault, but the fact that they talked about it so casually made Rin feel infuriated-

'We're upset too, Rin-chan...' Nagisa blurted out. 'We really are-honestly! We looked for Haru-chan each night with everyone else... I cried a lot, too, and I miss him still, but we had to move on with our lives. If the police didn't find anything, then what are we supposed to do? They don't know where Haru-chan is... nobody does...'

Rei twisted his fingers-he was a member of the group who Rin assumed hadn't known Haru before he disappeared, and evidently felt uncomfortable with the topic of conversation.

'I'm going to find Haru,' Rin announced, to them all.

'Y-you are?' Makoto flushed. 'Rin... how? He's been gone for five years-'

'I don't know!' Rin yelled, because the shock in Makoto's voice was aggravating. 'I don't know, but I think I've got a lead: I think someone sent a message to Haru-I think someone called him away on the night he disappeared.'

Makoto nodded.

'T-the police think that too, because there was no evidence of a struggle in his room and they found nothing when they fingerprinted it. But, Rin, they didn't find-'

'I can find it,' Rin snapped. 'If Haru was given a message, then I know I can find it-there's a place in his room that only the two of us knew about where Haru could have hidden something. Haru was clever-he knew I was coming back for him. That's why I...' Rin fidgeted. 'I know that if he thought he was in danger, then he would have left something for me in a place where only I could find it, and I need your help. I want to break into Haru's old house: I need to search his old bedroom.'

'R-Rin,' Makoto stammered. 'We_ couldn't_-!'

'No,' Nagisa shook his head. 'Mako-chan, Rin-chan has a _lead_: it might tell us where Haru-chan went!' He stood up and gripped Rin's arm. 'I... I want to find Haru-chan, too. If Rin-chan thinks he can find a clue, then it's at least worth a try! You're with us as well, aren't you, Rei-chan?'

'O-of course!' The blue haired man-Rei- seemed slightly surprised at the mention of his name, but happy nonetheless to be included in the group. 'I... Rin-san, if I can help i-in any way you'd deem my assistance worthful-'

'It makes no difference to me,' Rin replied. 'If you're with me, I'd appreciate it... but if not, I'm still going after Haru.'

Makoto drew a breath.

'I didn't say I wasn't with you... Haru was important to me, too! I'll help look with everyone, I just... Rin. What do you think you can find that five years of police research can't?'

Rin pulled on his lip.

'I don't know,' he replied. 'But I have to at least try-I promised Haru I'd come back and find him, and I'm not about to go back on that now.'

He wanted to bring Haru back and spend Haru's seventeenth birthday together.

* * *

><p>Rin met with Nagisa, Makoto and Rei again on the following day. Makoto informed Rin that the new family who lived in Haru's house were the Kazumi's, and from 5pm-7pm during the week their house would be empty; the male went to work and the woman visited her elderly mother in the town, leaving Rin with an opportunity to break in.<p>

On the way to Haru's old house, Makoto and Rin walked side by side whilst Nagisa and Rei dropped behind them, talking to each other in quiet-not-so-quiet whispers.

'Nagisa-kun,' Rei begun, quietly. 'Uhm, I-I was wondering... you see.. why is Rin-san so obsessed with finding Haruka-san, anyway?'

'Because,' Nagisa hummed. 'Rin-chan and Haru-chan had a spark between them!'

'A spark?' Rei's voice echoed with disbelief.

'Yeah, a spark-they had a connection with each other! Mako-chan felt it, too-he was always telling me that Haru-chan and Rin-chan couldn't see anything else when they were around each other, because they had an invisible thread that connected them all of the time.'

'A t-thread... r-right...'

Rei looked away-clearly their topic of conversation was too far away from his scope of believability.

'Makoto,' Rin begun, from up front. 'Do you ever get the feeling that Haru's trying to reach out to you?'

'No. Do you?'

'I-'

Rin broke away: he couldn't explain what he felt. After meeting with Nagisa, Makoto and Rei, an odd feeling had filtered through Rin-to Rin, it felt like something was telling him that he was on the right path; that he was brushing shoulders with eleven year old Haru, or chasing his shadow: it was the same kind of feeling that Rin had gotten when he'd thought about the crack in Haru's wall.

'I don't know,' Rin corrected. 'I don't know _what_ I feel. Makoto, do you have any theories about Haru?'

'I try not to think about it.' Makoto answered, suddenly stern. 'Losing him... it came as a shock-I've known Haru since before I could talk, so I... I really couldn't imagine life without him, and it's still hard to accept that he isn't there. For months, I didn't know what to think-I stopped going to school. Nagisa took it awfully, too,' Makoto mumbled. 'I couldn't have dealt with losing Haru in the same way without him, because he was the only other person who understood. Rei is, well... he's on the side-lines to this... but we've talked about it in the past and the case made local news, so he knows all of the details. If I had to say what happened to Haru, I guess... I guess he got taken away by a foster family to go and live with them abroad.'

Rin stared back at Makoto in disbelief.

'Seriously... do you believe that?!'

'I want it to be true,' Makoto said, quietly. 'Because it's happier than all of the other things that I can think of.'

There was a window in Haru's storeroom and Rin twisted the latch, pushing his body through, treading quietly as he climbed the stairs, to check that the house really was empty. Nagisa, Makoto and Rei talked outside and kept watch, as Rin quietly slipped upstairs, finding Haru's closet-which had been built into the wall-moving back all of the shoes and boxes that the new owners had put in the way.

_Shit. _

The new house owners of the room had put up a different wallpaper-Rin reached down the skirting board and ripped a streak up, exposing the yellow paper that had previously been on Haru's wall, and the small hole at the bottom of it. Rin twisted his little finger inside the hole and spent six minutes angling it to push back the brick, his fingers not as small now as they used to be; there was a section of wall substrate underneath it where the mortar had crumbled and a gap had been created between the bricks and floorboards. Rin's hands weren't as small as when Haru had shown this space to him, so it was an effort for him to reach down-the fiberglass stung his skin and for a moment he thought there was nothing, but eventually Rin found a square of paper folded up among the mesh. He pulled it out and pushed the brick back into the gap, heart hammering in his chest as he climbed out the storeroom window, not bothering to clean up the closet.

_I knew it._

'Rin-san, did you find anything?'

'Yeah,' Rin replied, grinning, a sense of excitement burning inside of him. Makoto's eyes went wide, Nagisa gasped and Rei blinked in surprise.

'Show us!' Nagisa pleaded. 'Rin-chan, we want to see!'

'I...' Rin was about to pull the paper out of his pocket, when a dull thunk in his stomach stopped him. Haru had hidden this in a place where he could find it-he could have easily hidden it under his mattress or in his desk in a more obvious place for the police, but the fact that it was hidden in the wardrobe meant that it was intended for Rin, and just Rin alone. But Nagisa, Makoto and Rei were Haru's friends... weren't they? So, he could show them, too...

With trembling hands, Rin unfolded the paper:

WEST SIDE BOAT, 0630

Those were the only letters it contained. Rin swallowed hard in disappointment and Nagisa, Rei and Makoto all crowded around him, reading the words.

'This is useless,' Rin announced, chest sinking. 'I don't even understand it...'

'No,' Makoto replied. '... it's not useless. This isn't Haru's handwriting. Nor his grandmothers-I would recognise it.'

'Y-yes, of course! Rin-san...' Rei spoke hurriedly. 'This writing is slightly curved, incredibly slanted, messy and distinct-it seems to belong to an adult! If you took this to the police, they could produce a handwriting analysis and see who gave this to Haruka-san-'

'But the message doesn't make sense!' Nagisa moaned. 'Rin-chan, do you know what it means by boat?'

'I do.' Makoto contributed, quietly. 'And Nagisa, you do, too. Think back to what happened on the night Haru disappeared... the summer festival took place. There was a fishing competition where boats were leased out for an hour to see who could catch the most. They would have a record of all the boats that went out.'

'Y-you think...' Rin's hands trembled. 'You think Haru went on one of the fishing boats?'

'The paper seems to imply as much,' Rei noted, shifting up his frames with a finger. Nagisa cupped his hands over his mouth and whispered: '_Haru-chan..._' and Makoto looked up at Rin, softly.

'Well,' he replied. 'I didn't think it, but we've made incredible progress... Rin. Our next steps are clear.'

'Yeah,' Rin nodded.

'I assume you intend to go down to the boathouse and check the records to see who rented out boat 0630 during the festival five years ago?' Rei questioned.

'It's not a boat number,' Rin answered. '0630-it's the date of Haru's birthday and the night he went missing, but the fact that the boat was due to leave from the west side was helpful. I'm handing the original note into police custody at the station so they can do an analysis of the handwriting, and then tomorrow I defiantly want to go down to Iwatobi's boathouse myself and check the log of all the boats that went out on the 30th of July five years ago and left from the West side of the beach. If we produce a list of everyone who went out on boats that night, somewhere amongst them, we'll have the name of the person who took Haru.'

'Took?' Nagisa whispered. 'Rin-chan... you're really sure that-'

'Haru wouldn't leave his grandmother, and he wouldn't have ran away. He hid that note because he knew something might happen... so, yeah.' Rin finished. 'I'm starting to think someone was responsible. And I'll find them.'

It was getting late and the boathouse was closed, but Nagisa had suggested they all have a sleepover at one of their houses so they could all leave together tomorrow. Rin wasn't in the mood for mindless chattering and catch-up, but Makoto and Rei had both been fond of the idea and Rin eventually caved. They went back to Makoto's house and all talked about what they expected to learn tomorrow, as Rin listened in a detached way because without Haru there, it just felt _wrong_. He told the others he was going for a run and left, jogging alongside of the beach.

Rin reread the letters again and again in his mind, analysing the sentences. According to Makoto, there had been a summer festival on the evening Haru had gone missing, and several fishing boats had been leased out for an hour. An hour-that wasn't enough time to take Haru away. So, that meant that either one of the boats hadn't returned during that hour as it had taken Haru somewhere else, or that one of the boats had taken Haru to one of the small islands around Iwatobi's radius. Did a boat leave with Haru and come back without him? Haru obviously hadn't been registered as getting on a boat, or the police would have mentioned that in their reports. Rin needed to visit the boathouse to be sure just what had happened.

There was something else strange about the night that Haru had gone missing, Rin thought; Haru had come home late. He'd been out with Nagisa and Makoto, and the police had said that his grandmother recalled scolding him because he didn't come home on time... which wasn't like Haru-he knew his grandmother was ill, and wouldn't have deliberately done anything to make her worry. Rin wondered what had made him come home later that day-did he meet someone on the way back to his house? It was very possible that the person who'd took Haru had planned it. They'd done it under the guise of the summer festival, after all, where it wouldn't look suspicious for multiple boats to leave Iwatobi... which meant that it couldn't be anyone else-they'd wanted Haru specifically, so there was a good chance Haru was alive, as they probably needed him. But why? And for what?

_WEST SIDE BOAT, 0630, WEST SIDE BOAT 0630..._

That was all he had to go on...

Rin stopped in a convenience store for a soda, then got permission to use their scanner to scan the scrap of paper he'd found hidden in Haru's closet to his phone, saved as a digital file, so that after he gave it to the police, Rin could see for himself if he had any handwriting that matched the writing on this note. He went back to Makoto's house to find that everyone was asleep in Makoto's bedroom and a futon had been laid out for him; Rin climbed inside then stared at the paper to try and force his brain to recognise the handwriting, before slipping it into his pocket and falling asleep.

* * *

><p>He dreamed.<p>

In the dream, Rin was back on the beach with Haru and they were eleven. The ocean shimmered a faint light blue, which reflected in Haru's eyes, shades of violet dancing across his pupils. But the sky was a blood red-it hadn't been red before.

'I'm so confused,' Rin whispered.

'Rin,' Haru said. 'You shouldn't trust...'

A white humming overcame Haru's words like a swarm of insects, the humming quickly turning into buzzing as Rin sat, heart heaving in his chest. The sun was shining through the curtains in fingers of light as Makoto, Nagisa and Rei all pulled themselves up from their bedcovers, rustling and yawning groggily. Rin stuffed his hand into his jean pockets frantically, searching for the scrap of paper Haru had left him in his closet.

It was gone.

'Where IS IT?!' Rin demanded, turning his pockets inside out and lifting up the pillows, throwing back the blanket to find that it wasn't there-it had been there that night. But now it wasn't.

Someone had taken it.


	2. Directions

**Luuka: **this fic is 25k-ish wds, when I wrote it Free! was either still airing or on episode 10 which feels like forever ago, honestly.

**Warnings will remain unmarked.** Please read considering that you may encounter a possible trigger theme at any point as I won't be marking them, I'd ruin the mystery. This fic is rated M, containing **harrowing content.**

* * *

><p>'Rin?' Makoto asked, sleepily. 'What's wrong?'<p>

'Th-the paper Haru left in his closet...' Rin stammered. 'I can't find it anywhere-'

'Rin-san...' Rei said, timidly as Rin continued to pillage through the bedcovers. 'Isn't it entirely possible that you dropped it whilst you were out on your run-'

'I wouldn't lose something this important!' Rin snapped, tossing a pillow out of its case and turning it upside down. 'That piece of paper was evidence that may have been the difference between us finding Haru and him staying missing, and you think I just-_just-_dropped it?!'

He gave up and looked at the pile of dishevelled blankets, pressing his lips together in a line. He_ hadn't_ lost that note and he knew it-Rin had read it before he'd fallen asleep, then slipped it into his pocket. Before Rin had slept, the paper had been with him but now it was gone, which meant someone had taken it. Nagisa, Makoto and Rei were the only people in the room... all of them had known what that paper had contained.

'Which one of you has it?!' Rin snarled.

'R-Rin-chan...' Nagisa looked hurt. 'W-what are you trying to say-'

'I'm saying that one of you didn't want a handwriting analysis to be performed and stole that piece of paper from me-what have you done with it?!'

'Rin...' Makoto's voice was stern. 'I think you should calm down. You've taken this too far-'

'R-Rin-san!' Rei's voice was frantic. 'If what you're _suggesting_ is true and one of us did steal that paper, don't you know... t-that would mean one of us doesn't want Haru to get found-'

'Yeah,' Rin snapped. 'That's why I'm asking again- who has the paper?'

For several moments, the room was quiet. Nagisa was the one who broke the silence:

'H-hey...' he managed. 'R-Rin-chan, please don't do this... don't divide us apart! W-we all want to help find Haru-chan and now you're trying to say that one of us doesn't, just because of a piece of paper-'

'It's wasn't _just_ a piece of paper,' Rin shouted. 'It was evidence and now it's gone!'

'Then it's still in the room or you've lost it,' Makoto replied, in a tone that was soft but commanded no argument. 'Rin; I absolutely don't believe that anyone in this room would attempt to conceal anything that might lead us to finding Haru. If you're implying that one of us took that paper, that means one of us was involved when Haru went away, a-and we were both eleven at the time-Nagisa and Rei just ten years of age, so there's no way that's possible-Haru didn't even know Rei back then!'

_Didn't he?,_ Rin thought to himself, because all he had was Rei's word for that. He was quiet, sulkily, giving himself a few moments to brood.

'If I am wrong and I find the paper, then I'll apologise,' he bit out the words. 'But I feel as if last night, one of you took the paper from my pocket and crammed it down the sink or destroyed it in some way to stop the handwriting analysis from being performed. Well, it's gonna take more than that,' Rin said, slipping out his phone. 'I scanned that paper last night and saved it as a file, so at the first chance I get I'm sending a copy to the police.'

The words hung heavy in the air and Rin knew that once he'd made those kind of accusations, there was no taking them back but his dream of Haru and the loss of evidence made him suspicious. Nagisa, Makoto and Rei were the only other people who'd known about the existence of that message, so they were the only ones who could have destroyed it... and all of them had been presented with the opportunity to do so during the previous night. Yes, they had all been just children at the time of Haru's disappearance, but what if one of them _knew something_?

Rin scanned each of their faces in turn. Makoto's mouth was hard as though he had something he wanted to say, Nagisa's eyes were wide and confused, and beside him Rei was flustered, at a loss for words. Of all of those expressions... was one of them a mask? Or was Rin really overreacting?

'I'm gonna eat out for breakfast,' he announced. 'I'll meet you all at the boathouse in two hours; let me know if you find the paper.'

Rin went to a Wi-Fi café where he uploaded the scanned image of the paper in Haru's closet to two separate e-mail accounts, then walked to Iwatobi's police station. He gave them his cell phone's SD card.

'A letter, hm? Interesting,' Miss. police receptionist-who was wearing plum lipstick today-commented in what seemed to be her default bored voice, as she copied the image to her own files. 'I'm going to need to call you at some stage to produce a statement about the circumstances upon which you found this evidence; bear in mind that if you found this note through illegal means, then you will be prosecuted.'

'Wh... what does it matter how I found it?!' Rin half-snapped. 'It's evidence! You can use it-'

'And how-' she drawled. '...are we supposed to do that?'

'What the hell do you mean _'how_?!' You can analyse the handwriting and compare it to your records-'

'Handwriting analysis's are used to _confirm_ suspicions,' the receptionist replied. 'We can't press a charge for a missing boy based on their results alone and even so, we don't have the handwriting of everybody in Iwatobi on file. Handwriting changes depending on various factors such as age and mood. And...' she peered up at Rin. 'This is just a scan of some writing. Anyone could have produced it, at any time-there's no original. How do we know if it's authentic?'

'H-Haru left it in a place for me... H-Haru wanted me to have this, and he wanted me to find him with it but now you're telling me there's nothing you can do?!'

The receptionist sighed.

'Look... I know you want to find your friend, but the police are doing all they can. I'll pass your evidence on but in the meantime, leave it in our hands, okay?'

Rin left the police station feeling as if he'd wasted his time. When he got to the boathouse, he saw Nagisa waving beside Makoto and Rei, who were talking to a man who seemed vaguely familiar... when Rin mentally shifted gears, he realised that it was one of his former swim coaches.

'Coach!' Rin said, surprised to find Coach Sasabe standing before him. He grinned and slapped Rin on the back.

'How you doin', kid? Still swimming?'

'I... not so much,' Rin muttered, having hit a personal wall in Australia that he didn't want to get into. 'Why are you here?'

'Ah, well... since yer old swim club shut down, I've been squid finishing!' Sasabe exclaimed, patting the hull of a boat beside him, it's flag reading: 'BIG CATCH SASA!' '...she's my pride and joy,' he sighed, looking up at the boat with fondness. 'My grandfather owns this place... all of the boats here are under his control!'

'They are?' Rin asked, because that was helpful-it would save him the trouble of trying to coax the records he wanted from someone he didn't know. For a moment, Sasabe looked awkward.

'Makoto here was just telling me... ah... I just wanted to say how sorry I am 'bout your little swimming friend. Heard it on the news when it happened, and well... it's an awful, awful thing for an eleven year old boy to disappear-'

'He didn't _disappear_,' Rin said, aggravated, because everybody seemed to talk about Haru as if he'd been stupid and wandered away, when Rin knew Haru better than that. 'Haru's somewhere and I'm going to find him- I need to see the boathouse records.'

'Well, I can't say no to that attitude!' Sasabe chuckled, unlocking the door to the boathouse and inviting them all inside. Rin asked for the records from 2009 and Sasabe found a worn binder which Rin flipped through, until he reached the log of boats rented out on the 30th of June. The list itself was extensive; over 40 identical fishing boats had all been rented in a single night, each one of them leaving the dock at the same time. And all of them had returned at the same time; Rin chewed his lip at that.

'The fishing festival occurred on the 30th of June that year,' Sasabe supplied, to Rin's frustrated expression. 'The boats all left the beach at 7pm from various positions on the shore, and each one came back at 8! At least one person on each boat signed their name in the register.'

_In other words,_ Rin thought to himself. _There could have been people on the boat who didn't put their name on the boat register, so it would have been possible for Haru to get on a boat but not be listed here._

Still, that didn't change the fact that of the forty names on this list, one of them was the name of the person who'd taken Haru.

Which one?

Rin's eyes skimmed over the page. He recognised the family names of his old teacher, some of his mother's friends and even one of the keepers at the shrine, but the rest were all just letters to him. Makoto, Nagisa and Rei's family names were all listed on the page.

'You guys participated in the fishing festival?' Rin asked.

'I went out that night, yes,' Makoto replied. 'It's a family contest. Haru's grandmother wasn't healthy enough for it, so he usually came with me, although... he didn't that time... we waited for him, but he never showed so my family went alone. ...You were there, too, Rei?'

'I assume my family was, yet I'd preferred not to attend,' Rei answered, stiffly. 'I have no interest in trivial things such as which family could catch the most fish in a bucket, only to release them in the sea afterwards-it's entirely illogical and defies purpose! Therefore, I recall I stayed at home.'

'I-I also went with my parents and sisters, Rin-chan,' Nagisa said, shuffling his feet as if he could read the suspicion in Rin's eyes and felt unsettled by it. 'H-Haru-chan wasn't with us...'

'I see,' Rin answered, although doubt was scratching at him like a scalpel. One of them wasn't being truthful and Rin could feel it, as if Haru were listening and was distilling the air in a way to warn Rin that something was _wrong, _that one of them had more to tell, but Rin couldn't tell _who._

'Did Haru have any other friends?' he asked.

Makoto shook his head.

'I don't think so. At least... not anyone that I knew of.'

Rin didn't know of anyone, either-admittedly, he'd only gone to the same school as Haru for a few months-having transferred half way through a term -but he'd never seen Haru with anyone other than Nagisa, Makoto and him. Haru had been mistrusting of others, which made Rin think that any adult would have a hard time grooming him; this was another reason why Rin didn't trust Nagisa, Makoto and Rei-because Haru wouldn't get on a boat with a stranger... unless it contained one of his friends.

'Hey!' Rin's trail of thought suddenly regained it's footing. 'If Haru got on a boat at the beach, but all of the boats were returned... that means Haru couldn't have been taken far. Whoever took him away had an hour to drop him off and return -I mean, they must have taken him _somewhere,_ because why else have Haru get on a boat and risk him being seen? So, that means...'

_They took Haru to one of the miniature islands surrounding Iwatobi_, Rin finished, in his head.

'Makoto! How many small islands are there around Iwatobi?'

'E-eh? Um...' Makoto thought. 'Maybe thirty? Quite a few, I think...'

'And how many of those can be reached within half an hour or under?'

'I-I don't-'

'That's simple!' Rei laughed heartily, shifting up his glasses. 'It's a matter of equations! Rin-san, I assume you mean to say that Haruka-san was made to get on a fishing boat, then the party responsible for renting that boat placed him on an island... and to find out which island, you intend to use the speed of the boat to calculate the distance it could travel in half an hour, then see if there are any islands in that radius?'

'We know the boat left from the West,' Rin replied, grinning. 'Haru's note told us that; whoever wrote it wanted Haru to meet them at the West side of the beach, and they deliberately had their fishing boat leave from there so they could make the trip to the island and back to Iwatobi within an hour.'

'But you'd need to know the speed of the boat!' Nagisa imputed.

'Not hard to find out,' Rin muttered. 'The fishing boats for the festival all have to go at the same speed to make it a fair competition, remember? Coach Sasabe himself said they're identical.'

'There's a shed 'round the back of this place,' Sasabe confirmed. 'All of the festival boats are kept there! They're used as tourist ones, too-they don't go very fast. The maximum speed is five knots an hour.'

'In other words, 2.5 knots every half an hour...' Rei was thoughtful. 'And converting knots to km, then km to miles, in that time, I've concluded that you can travel a maximum distance of approximately 4.6 miles-'

'So, you'd need to find all of the islands that are 4.6 miles from the West side of Iwatobi's beach?' Makoto asked, green eyes inquiring.

'The West part of Iwatobi's sea is remote,' Sasabe said, as he dropped a chart before Rin. 'Aren't many islands around there! Except for a small islet about 3.7 miles from shore... though bearing in mind, it hardly qualifies. It's less than a mile in length, just caves-'

'Haru went there,' Rin announced, jabbing the dot on the chart with his thumb. 'So, I want to go there, too.'

'Rin-chan, w-wait!' Nagisa managed. 'We don't know if that's right! If someone took away Haru-chan from Iwatobi in a boat, then a bigger boat could have met them in the water to transfer him...'

'No,' Rin answered, confidently. 'If a bigger boat came from across the sea to pick Haru up, someone would have noticed it; there would have been people monitoring the fishing festival from the lighthouse and cliffs. They wouldn't suspect a fishing boat stopping off at a tiny islet, but if one stopped by a larger boat in the sea, it would draw attention. Coach,' Rin turned to Sasabe. 'Uh... can you take me to that islet on your squid boat?'

'H-hey, now...' Sasabe laughed. 'You really think your swimming friend went to that place? I'm not sure if it's a good idea for a kid like you to go to a remote island alone-'

'Oh, Rin won't be alone,' Makoto said, as he looked up. 'Rin. If you think Haru went there, then I'd like to search it alongside you.'

'I-I'm aware that I wasn't acquainted with Haruka-san personally,' Rei added, flustered. 'But I absolutely cannot stand by knowing that there may be some small way which I can help... so, I'd like to accompany you both... if you would permit it, Rin-san.'

'Hey, guys,' Nagisa whined. 'Don't leave me out... I want to help, too! Will you let us, Rin-chan?'

They hadn't really given Rin a choice; for one moment, Rin remembered the missing scrap of paper that only the four of them had known about and he wanted to snap: 'no,' and that he was doing this by himself, but Rin was afraid of what he would find on that island. No civilisation, Sasabe had said, just caves... but Rei's conversions of knots into miles had been useful, and as much as Rin hated to admit it, four sets of eyes were better than one. He shrugged.

'It doesn't bother me,' he answered. Sasabe clapped his hands together.

'Suppose it has been too long since I've been out on a fishing trip! You kids go home and get permission from your parents,' he laughed. 'Then make sure you pack and I'll take you to that islet for a few days! It's best to leave tomorrow morning. Ah, I remember when I used to camp-'

'Coach Sasabe doesn't take us seriously...' Makoto sighed, after they'd parted ways with Nagisa and Rei on the walk back to their homes. Rin didn't answer, shifting the strap of his backpack.

'I've been meaning to ask...' Makoto gave Rin a warm smile. 'What do you keep in that bag?'

'I-i... it's a birthday present. For Haru,' Rin explained and he took it out to show Makoto, turning the stuffed dolphin over in his hands. 'I bought it in Australia... I want to give it to him when he turns seventeen.'

'I see,' Makoto's voice was quiet. 'Will you take it tomorrow?'

'No. I'm leaving it in Iwatobi, so... it's not coming to the islet with me. I'll make sure Haru gets it when he comes home.'

'You really think Haru will come back, don't you?'

Makoto turned to the sky. Tears beaded in the corners of his eyes and he wiped them, hastily, before saying goodbye to Rin and turning away down his own path.

At home Rin packed a bag, ate dinner with his family then fell asleep.

* * *

><p>Another dream.<p>

In this one, the blood red of the sky lining the beach Rin had been standing on had been tainted to black. Haru was standing in the water and Rin was on the shore.

'You were taken to that islet, weren't you?' Rin asked.

'Yes,' Haru replied. 'At the end.'

'At the end... what happened to you? Haru?'

Haru turned away, his eyes blue pools of sadness.

'Every time I fall asleep, I feel like I'm close to you,' Rin murmured. 'Then when it comes to waking up... who took you, Haru? Tell me-'

'I want to see you,' Haru said. 'Just you.'

'T-the others are coming-'

'You can't trust them.'

The dream shattered. When Rin awoke, his pillow was wet from where he'd cried in his sleep.

He was clutching it with a fist.

* * *

><p>The next morning, Rin was going through his Father's old things-looking for a flashlight to take with him to the islet-when he found a retractable knife. He slipped it into his pocket, supposing it may prove to be useful.<p>

At breakfast, his younger sister informed him that a blank envelope had come through their front door during the night and neither she nor their mother could make any sense of the paper it contained. Rin took it from her, and when his eyes fell upon the page all movement in him ceased. Even his breathing seemed to pause temporarily... then he gulped in a breath.

It was a bird's eye, photographic map of the islet he'd intended to explore that day, with directions typed in a textbox in the corner-arrows had been drawn in black pen linking each direction to a place. The page itself seemed old-the paper had yellowed slightly with age and the black ink had started to fade-and it had been hole-punched in the side, which made Rin think it had been taken from a binder. The text to the side of the diagram of the islet were directions, which read:

'_BEACH_

_CAVE _(there was a series of dotted arrows pointing to a location on the map)

_LEFT, LEFT, RIGHT, DOWN, RIGHT 3, LEFT, water, LEFT, DOWN, RIGHT_

_GRAVEYARD_

_INSIDE TOMB: HOPE'_

_These are directions telling me to look inside a tomb,_ Rin thought, and before he was aware of his actions he'd begun to dial the police, holding his cell phone to his ear because he _had _to give this to them, he had to tell the police that someone had sent him this evidence!

'110, this is the police operating system, please state your region and you'll be connected-'

At the automatic voice, Rin hung up.

He thought of Miss. 'I-hate-my-job' police receptionist in Iwatobi's police station. He thought of the words: 'you'll be prosecuted if you found this evidence through illegal means' and the words: 'how do we know if it's authentic?,' and he wondered if the police would really do anything if he gave this map to them, other than file it away in a cabinet, or arrest Rin believing he may have been involved. He thought of Haru, and Haru's: 'I want to see you. Just you,' and that he'd already decided to go to that islet... then he thought of the way Haru had told him that he was on the _end_ of that islet, but the line on the map pointing to where the tomb should be was in the _middle_, and something inside of Rin's chest relaxed.

No. He wanted to see what the islet contained first for himself, then he'd tell the police afterwards.

'Rin-chan, you're late!' Nagisa gasped, bouncing towards him when Rin arrived at the boathouse.

'I'm going alone,' Rin cut him off. 'To the islet... I want to go by myself.'

'Whaaat?'

'R-Rin-san...' Rei seemed startled. 'I _thought-'_

'I got this today,' Rin snapped, holding up the map that he'd received through his door. 'Look familiar to any of you?'

All of them studied it for several moments, each with their own puzzled expressions.

'Where did you get that?' Makoto asked, eventually. 'R-Rin. This paper is-'

'I _know _what it is!' Rin growled. 'I want to know who gave it to me!'

'N-none of us,' Nagisa stammered. 'Why would you say it belongs to us?'

'Look at the situation!' Rin snapped. 'Think about it and you'll be able to tell that you're the only ones who could have slipped this map to me! You three are the only ones who were there when I found that note in Haru's closet, then we all had a sleepover and it disappeared! You three are the only ones other than Coach Sasabe who _knew _that were going to that islet tomorrow, then that night a map comes through my front door with directions.' Needles of ice spiked Rin's voice. 'Unless I've been stalked since I got back to Iwatobi, then one of you guys is fucking around.'

Haru's words flashed across Rin's brain:

_You can't trust them._

'Rin,' Makoto's voice was steady. 'You're the one turning up all of this evidence-if anyone appears suspicious at this point, it's you.'

'W-what the hell-'

'I'm afraid Makoto-senpai is right,' Rei said, as he adjusted his glasses. 'Rin-san... how is it that you've come to possess two items of evidence that not even the police themselves could uncover?'

'Mako-chan... Rei-chan...' Nagisa whined. 'Stop it. D-don't say those kind of things, stop it-'

'Don't you _dare_,' hot tears burned in Rin's eyes. 'Don't suggest I had anything to do with what happened with Haru... none of you have a_ clue_-'

'Ay', Rin's here!' Coach Sasabe laughed, poking his head out from the boathouse door and grinning at Rin. 'Ready to take off?'

Sasabe's squid fishing boat-BIG CATCH SASA!-was small, strange-smelling and clunky, yet it skimmed over the waves like a dragonfly. The island itself was close to four miles away from Iwatobi and Sasabe predicted that they'd make the journey in 25 minutes. Noone on the boat apologised for the argument earlier.

For Rin, it had been easier to let the others come with him than to keep insisting 'no,' because he didn't want another fight... but that didn't mean he trusted them.

After Haru's disappearance, cracks had started to form in Rin's friendship with the rest of the former Iwatobi swum club, and now they were only continuing to widen. As much as Rin didn't understand why one of Haru's friends would want him to stay missing, the possibility that one of them knew something about Haru yet pretended not to made Rin's blood turn to fire. Haru had trusted his friends.

He'd been just an eleven year old kid, and one of them may have betrayed him.

'Rin-chan...' Nagisa crossed the deck to him. 'Can... can I see that map?'

'Sure.'

Rin dug it out of his pocket and passed it over. Nagisa observed it with a look in his eyes Rin couldn't place, then passed it back.

'Hey, Rin-chan...' he broke off. 'Do you think... Haru-chan... could have given you that map?'

'W-what makes you say that?' Rin asked, blinking, because he'd never considered a solution like _that_-it was inconceivable. He wondered what had made Nagisa suggest it.

'I feel like Haru-chan is always with you, so in that case... maybe Haru-chan knows... maybe Haru-chan is leading you to him?'

'Why would Haru lead me to himself if he can move around freely-he could just come and see me.'

'W-well, m-maybe... maybe he can't move around freely.'

'What the hell?' Rin scowled. 'In that case, how'd he get the map to me?!'

'Ah... I-I don't know.' Nagisa shrugged. 'Forget I said anything!'

Confused, Rin tucked the map back into his pocket and watched Nagisa skip over to Rei. It was then Makoto approached him.

'Rin...' his voice was faraway. 'Do you really think Haru is on that island?'

'Islet,' Rin corrected, as being less than a mile long in length and width, the shelf of land didn't qualify as an island. 'And I'm confident.'

'I see...'

His dreams during the previous nights had been too real, too _lucid_-Rin had a strong feeling that he couldn't shake, as if the blood surging through his heart was resonating with the atmosphere, with his thoughts, his surroundings. Sometime later, he turned.

'The person who took Haru had it all planned out: they put thought into taking Haru and went to the effort of hiding his disappearance during the boat festival, which means there must have been a reason why they wanted him... he could still be out there, Makoto.'

'I know...' Makoto sounded sad. 'But we're going to a remote islet in the sea. Even if Haru is there, h-he might not be...'

Neither of them wanted to hear the last word. A seagull cawed shrilly above and Rin looked out across the waves. It had been five years... would he even recognise Haru, now?

Yeah, he would: Rin knew he would. All he had to do was find him.

The boat pulled up and Rin stepped out onto the shore, feeling the sand sink beneath his shoes. They'd reached the islet and Rin could see Iwatobi from its beach, as it was less than four miles in the distance, although to Rin it just appeared to be a scrap of green patchwork floating on the ocean. The islet, Rin noticed, was all caves... he couldn't see anything else.

'What's at the end of this place?' Rin asked, remembering how Haru had told him he was: 'at the end,' in Rin's dream. The islet itself was shaped like a wide, horizontal line, and Sasabe's boat had anchored itself at the bottom to let them off.

'Nothing is what!' Sasabe replied. 'Just the back of some caves. It's all craggy rocks and whirlpools... terrible whirlpools-they'll suck you in and drown you. You kids would be better off staying on the beach where you'll catch some sun, understand?'

Rin frowned at that comment but didn't retort, instead thanking Sasabe for his help and watching him leave with the others. Sasabe had agreed to come back in two nights to collect them, although he'd also said that he'd probably hang around the islet to fish whenever he didn't have to work, so they could wave and signal him over if he was needed before.

Rin slipped out his cell phone, reading the screen.

_No reception, huh?_

Still, that didn't frighten Rin; he didn't feel cut off. Even if Sasabe didn't come back to get them, Iwatobi was only three and a half miles away, which would be swift swimming in calm water. Considering how hot the sun was now, the idea seemed inviting... but that wasn't what Rin had come for.

'According to this map we start at the beach,' Rin begun, tracing the arrow on the piece of paper. 'Then we keep going forward and take the cave second to the... left... closest to us.'

'W-wait a minute, R-Rin... you're really following that thing?!'

There was panic in Makoto's voice. Rin nodded.

'Yeah. Somebody sent me this map, so they obviously feel as if there's something at the end of it that I need to see.' Rin remembered his retractable knife, feeling the weight of it in his pocket. 'And I'm ready for them.'

'I'll admit that without a map, we'd just be wandering around...' Rei looked away. 'Even if that cave is rather... ominous... it does appear to be our best bet.'

'And we can use our cell phones for flash lights!' Nagisa grinned. 'Let's _goooo_! It'll be like an adventure!'

Makoto had visibly paled at the prospect of climbing into a dark cave. He remained still on the beach, even as the others walked.

'I don't agree with this,' he called. 'Rin... someone has given you a sheet of orders and you're just going to follow them... don't you understand that this could be a trap?! Can't you see this map proves that s-s-someone is _waiting_ for you-'

'Yeah,' Rin nodded. 'But it also proves there's someone out there who knows what happened to Haru, and this is the only way to find them. Sasabe knows we're here if we go missing... noone is making you come. Stay on the beach if you want.'

Rin turned and followed Nagisa-who'd ran ahead, excitedly-towards the indicated cave; Rei shot Makoto a conflicted look before turning around, then making his way towards the others. For a moment Makoto remained on the beach-distressed by the bluntness of Rin's words-before jogging forward to join them. He gripped onto Rei's arm as they stood before the mouth of the cave.

'It's hugggeee,' Nagisa whispered, in awe. 'And so dark! Rin-chan, I bet we'll see a ghost!'

'Preposterous!' Rei laughed, then: 'a-ah, M-Makoto-senpai... I'm afraid your nails are digging into my s-skin...'

They followed the directions written on the map, left, left, right, down, taking the third right, left and then through a pool of water; the cave itself wasn't that big, but it continually twisted and the further they ventured, the deeper the darkness around them grew. Makoto continued to jump at shadows-squeezing Rei whenever Nagisa said that he_ thought_ he'd heard someone else-and by the time they saw a prick of light at the end, they could see that Makoto had turned almost completely white, which was when Nagisa stopped teasing him and apologised, hugging him instead. They emerged through the back of the cave and were met with a muddy slope.

Sunlight hit Rin in the face. They all gasped.

After the cave, the path had forked into a few meters of grass-it seemed to be the only section of greenery on the entire islet, situated in the middle. Rin heard the quiet babble of a salt water stream and saw the sky peeking in through the trees, their branches stretched out like huge umbrellas, creating a canopy where shallow sunlight filtered through. At first, it looked like a paradise.

Then Rin noticed the deposits of rock sticking up from the earth, and he realised it was a graveyard.

'This _is_ peculiar...' Rei murmured. 'It seems we're in a graveyard... although it appears to have been neglected for quite some time. The weeds are _completely_ out of control.'

It was true-several tombs were scattered here and there, but all of them had been covered by moss and twisting vines and the stones meant as grave markers had all begun to crumble and fade. The tombs were unmarked, Rin noticed, apart from the odd one or two, containing surnames he didn't recognise. Noone had burned incense for any of the deceased, nor left ribbon or flowers.

It was too eerie. Too _strange._

'I don't like this,' Makoto whispered. 'I don't like this... Rin, I don't like this...'

'I don't get it,' Nagisa whined. 'Why have a graveyard all the way up _here_? It's the middle of nowhere!'

'W-well, it is rather peaceful...' Rei stammered. 'I-I'd imagine... i-it does make a rather pleasant resting place...'

_Not that the dead can appreciate it_, Rin thought, but didn't say the words. Nagisa was right; it was strange to see a graveyard situated so far away from civilisation, where it would be difficult to visit the lost; nobody had told Rin there was a place like this here and all of the graves were unmarked, too-just who were the people buried underneath his feet? Or rather, who had they _been_?

'The map says there's something inside the tomb with 'HOPE' written on it,' Rin announced. 'And... that's it. There aren't any more instructions after that.'

'I-it's this tomb,' Rei informed them, standing before a once white enamel casket. Now, time had turned the stone to grey.

'That was easy...' Rin muttered. He scraped the moss from the sides of the tomb with his fingernails, testing the weight of the lid beneath his hands.

'R-Rin...' Makoto seemed to be close to tears. 'If you open that, a-and there's a body in there... it will be so disrespectful-'

'I know,' Rin whispered, and his lips formed a small prayer although the words in his head were: '_not Haru,_' as he slid the heavy lid back, letting it fall to the dirt with a thud. Nagisa and Rei crowded around him then Makoto approached nervously. All of them peered inside.


	3. Shoreline

When he'd opened the tomb, Rin had expected to find nothing inside. He was surprised to discover a set of stairs.

_It's a... passageway?_

The steps within the tomb extended into darkness and as Rin looked at them, he felt nervousness with a splash of excitement; Haru could be close.

'Do you think the police saw this?' Makoto asked.

'Obviously not,' Rin muttered. 'Or there wouldn't be moss all over the tomb-'

'A-ah... what Rin-san meant to say is that considering the circumstances, it's unlikely,' Rei commented, sensing tension between the two. 'Bearing in mind the police wouldn't have thought Haruka-san would be on this islet, it's possible they didn't search it _entirely _thoroughly... there seems to be only one specific route you can take to reach this place, and... even if the authorities did come here... it is widely considered disrespectful to open tombs. Therefore, they couldn't do so without a strong suspicion.'

'There's something down there,' Rin announced. 'I can feel it-what did Sasabe say about this place not having any civilisation? Well, it looks like he was wrong.'

Makoto made a strangled sound.

'R-Rin. We really should leave... we've found out that there's something here, so let's go back to Iwatobi and call the police-'

'If you're going to complain the entire time, then go back to the beach now,' Rin snapped. 'You don't seem to get it! Haru was brought to this islet then made to walk down these steps, so if he can do it, then I'm going to as well. I've waited five years to see him again-I'm not waiting any longer!'

'Think about this!' Makoto pleaded. 'We have to call the police! Nagisa, don't you agree, too?!'

'I-I don't know...' Nagisa looked away. 'Mako-chan, I'm scared, too, but I want to find Haru-chan... if Rin-chan thinks he may be alive-'

'Do you honestly agree with that?' Makoto was trembling. 'Nagisa, even if we find Haru... he might not be... i-if he isn't breathing...'

'I'm afraid...' Rei begun. 'I have to accompany Rin-san; I'd like to explore this passageway alongside him.'

Nagisa gave Makoto a pained look before gripping Rin's arm.

'Mako-chan, sorry... I want to see Haru-chan again... I want to swim with everyone again! We've come this far, so please keep going with us... on the chance that Haru-chan is out there, even if it's small... we all want to find him-'

Makoto laughed quietly.

'Is this what it's come to? Fine... I'll go. But don't any of you have an ominous feeling?!'

Rin guarded his expression to hide the fact that it was mutual- he was afraid of what was at the bottom of those steps, as whatever it was, it was hidden inside of a tomb and therefore unlikely to be pleasant. His fears melted away like snow as he took the first few steps down, brushing cobwebs from his eyes as he descended, using the light of his cell phone to look around.

He saw white, tiled walls.

It was a corridor.

Rin picked up a piece of broken tile and threw it down the hall. It skittered across the ground and he heard the crunch of rock and plaster where it shattered in the distance; several rats scuttled but there wasn't another single other sound. He called up to the others and they climbed down after him.

The walls and floor of the corridor they walked had been paved by tiles which Rin assumed had once been white; however, now they were cracked and faded, dirty with peeling plaster and a layer of grime between them. Rin rested one hand on his retractable knife as he walked, hearing Nagisa, Rei and Makoto all whispering to each other behind him. They weren't walking for long before they found themselves in a square sector of the corridor containing several pieces of furniture.

It looked like a cheap waiting room.

Two dingy leather sofas were stationed against the wall with a walnut coffee table between them, containing an assortment of leisure magazines about television and sports; Rin picked one up.

It was dated March 2009-the same year that Haru had gone missing.

'It's quiet!' Nagisa breathed- in perhaps what he thought to be an attempt to diffuse the tension. 'I don't think anyone else is here-that's a relief, isn't it?'

Nagisa looked scared, Rin thought, but so did Rei although both of them combined didn't seem to emit the same level of fear as Makoto, who'd refused to let go of Nagisa's sleeve the entire time since they'd left the graveyard.

Rin knew he should share their fear although, surprisingly, he couldn't; the deeper they went into this place, the closer they were to finding Haru... because of that, he couldn't be afraid.

He spun three hundred and sixty degrees-examining each wall-and counting the doors... not including the hallway they'd just come from, there were more five more doors. They were in some kind of underground facility, although it would take more exploration for Rin to determine _where._

'There are five rooms,' Rin informed the others. 'That means we get one each to explore, then we can search the last one together.'

'W-wait...' Makoto's voice was faint. 'R-Rin, you want us to _split up_?!'

'Yeah,' Rin nodded. 'It's faster that way. Who wants to choose a door?'

'The doors are marked!' Nagisa exclaimed. 'Huhh, let's see... we have:

-001-

-002-

-CLEANING-

-MAINTAINENCE-

-INCINERATOR-'

'I don't know which one sounds least dubious...' Rei muttered.

'Mako-chan should have cleaning,' Nagisa announced, giving Makoto's shoulder an affectionate squeeze. 'He isn't feeling too good, and 'cleaning' doesn't sound creepy at all!'

'The only reason the doors seem creepy is because of your imagination,' Rin replied, patiently. 'Nagisa, which door do you want?'

'Hmm, 002... wait, 001! What about you, Rei-chan?'

'Maintenance. I wouldn't venture near the incinerator _alone_.'

'Then that gives me 002.' Rin finished. 'We'll check out the incinerator together, because that sounds like where the waste is kept. You guys all have your phones... there's no signal but they're still good for time-let's meet back here in half an hour.'

'W-what do we do if something happens?' Makoto called, his green eyes wide. Rin thought for a moment.

'Uh... yell?'

* * *

><p>The door labelled '002' was white and as Rin pushed it open, it hit the wall and he heard the crack of tiles. Rin stuffed his hands into his pockets and tsked, looking around.<p>

There were three doors inside '002-' he tried the handle of one.

The room appeared to be an office; it was tiny and secluded with a pitiful wooden desk and pockmarked, plain wallpaper that had clearly seen better days. There was also a silver filing cabinet with three drawers-they were all open and the keys were on the floor.

Empty: the drawers were empty. There wasn't a single piece of paperwork inside, but the partitions on the organisation dividers had kanji written on them, which meant that they had held contents at some point, but someone had removed them then carelessly thrown aside the keys. ...Who?

The next room Rin entered was somewhat similar to a dispensary. It contained a fold up chair and a single cabinet of drugs, although there wasn't a wide selection-it was the kind of variety he'd seen in Samezuka's infirmary when he'd taken an enrolment tour; a very small, specific collection-probably smuggled, Rin thought. There was also a bookshelf containing several binders filled with details about medical procedures and DIY operations, as well as step by step medical 'how-to's-' as Rin's eyes skimmed over the pages, a chill ran down from his fingertips to his spine. For a reason he couldn't explain, he suddenly felt sick. His head was thrumming that something was _wrong wrong wrong _so he dropped the binder and ran without bothering with the final room, bursting out of the '002' door and back into the main hallway.

'NAGISA?! MAKOTO?! REI!'

His trainers skidded on the tiles as he stopped, breath coming in short pants. Nagisa and Makoto were sitting together on the floor in the 'reception' room, staring back at Rin wide-eyed.

'Rin-chan?' Nagisa questioned.

'W-what is it?' Makoto squeaked, as if he expected a mad, chainsaw-wielding man to burst out of the '002' door after Rin. Rin shook his head.

'A-ah... it's nothing.'

It must have hit him all at once that he was underground, that there weren't any windows and they were far from daylight with no means of communication... Rin supposed he'd become claustrophobic: he had no other means of explaining what had just happened.

'...Where's Rei?'

'Still in the maintenance hallway,' Makoto murmured. 'It's only been 20 minutes, and we agreed to meet in half an hour.'

'We were waiting for you and Rei-chan to get back so we could discuss what we found in the rooms!' Nagisa chirped.

'Rei could be another 10 minutes,' Rin said, as he sat. 'So, why don't we start now and fill him in later?'

'E-eh? A-alright...' Makoto trailed away. 'I... I was the first one back. The 'cleaning' hallway had two doors, and one of them was a broom closet- the other one was a kitchen. There were some bleach and mops in the store cupboards, but that was all it contained. In the kitchen... there were bugs all over the cupboards...'

'Anything else?' Rin pressed.

'A washing machine,' Makoto murmured. 'That's all I saw. Rin, it's possible that... I may have missed something; I was afraid. When I saw the bugs, my knees started buckling so I came back here and waited alone... I didn't search the room any more.'

Rin nodded-tucking that information away. He turned to Nagisa, expecting the younger man to enthusiastically blurt out his own discoveries, but instead Nagisa shrunk back, as though cold.

'001... has two beds...' Nagisa murmured. 'Like... hospital ones... I-I think. But Rin-chan, one of the beds... it was different from the other.'

'_Different_?'

'It had a new blanket,' Nagisa nodded. 'It was purple and ultra-soft, but the sheet on the other bed was plain white and scratchy. A-also... there was a really cute teddy bear on the end... it was wrapped up like a present-'

'A present?' Makoto repeated. '...Do you think it could have been for Haru?'

'I-I don't think it was for Haru-chan, Mako-chan,' Nagisa said, looking down. 'I thought about that, too, because Rin-chan said that Haru-chan may have been taken here, a-and it was his eleventh birthday when Haru-chan disappeared, but... the bear was pink. Why would anyone buy Haru-chan a _pink _bear?'

'Well, Haru does have a girl's name,' Rin mumbled. For him, the bear was interesting because it meant one of two things:

1) On the night that Haru had come here, someone had brought him a pink bear as a present because they'd thought he was a girl-which meant they didn't know Haru personally.

2) On the night that Haru had come here, there had been a young girl staying in this place, too.

Which one was it?

Rin shared his thoughts with the other two before telling them about the office he'd found-and how someone had removed all of the records-then breaking into explanation about the drugs cabinet and binder of medical notes. When he finished, an eerie stillness plauged the air.

'Are we in a... hospital?' Nagisa whispered, cupping his mouth. Rin shook his head.

'A hospital wouldn't be this shabby... it's more like a backwater clinic.'

'Backwater?'

'Yeah,' Rin nodded. 'It's a term for an illegal practice where unlicensed doctors will set up business to perform operations and give medical advice.'

'But why not go to a _normal_ clinic?' Nagisa demanded.

'Because those are public,' Rin sighed. 'Backwater clinics guarantee privacy-they're used by celebrities who don't want media coverage, criminals who don't want to go to authorities and people like organ donors who are put on waiting lists by public hospitals... at any rate, it isn't big here. There can't have been many doctors -maybe just one guy calling the shots. I wonder why he abandoned this place...'

Judging from the dates on the magazines in the 'waiting room,' this clinic hadn't been used since 2009... Rin wondered if Haru's disappearance had anything to do with that fact.

_Haru..._

A lump formed in Rin's throat.

_It was your eleventh birthday when you were brought here. You must have been petrified... you were just a kid._

'Rei-chan isn't back yet,' Nagisa said, voicing what all of them were thinking. Rin checked his phone: ten minutes had passed since their agreed half an hour.

'Did you hear any sounds? Anyone yelling?'

Makoto and Nagisa shook their heads.

'Shit... he went into engineering, right?'

'That's what he _said_,' Makoto murmured.

'Then we'll go check. He's probably absorbed in an instruction manual or something. Fuck.'

Haru was missing, and now Rei was gone, which was the last thing Rin wanted or needed. It had been his idea to come to this islet, and he didn't want anything to happen to any of the other three because of it-he should have insisted harder to come alone, he realised... should have taken his dream of Haru as a warning, but he hadn't. It would be his fault if anything happened.

When they entered the 'maintenance' door, they jogged along a corridor to find another iron door at the end. Rin could hear the sound of metal being pounded, then Nagisa sobbed suddenly and threw himself against the door.

'H-hello...?' Rei's voice sounded from the other side. 'Nagisa-kun, i-is that you? I-I'm afraid the door appears to be locked-'

'What do you mean, _locked_?' Makoto repeated hysterically.

'_Rei-chan..._' Nagisa sobbed. '_Rei-chan_... Rin-chan, the door isn't opening-'

'Would you both just fucking calm down?' Rin snapped, trying the handle himself. It was no good: the door wouldn't open. Rin pounded it with his fists and kicked it, slamming his body against it, but the metal refused to budge an inch.

'Shit...' Rin muttered. 'What the hell happened?!'

'I-I went into the room to explore and was inspecting the boiler when the door slammed shut,' Rei begun, in a shaken voice.

'Did it close by itself?'

'I d-don't believe so... you see, it was unlocked when I entered, but after it closed with me inside I heard a lock click-'

'We need to get him out!' Nagisa gripped Rin's hoodie, cheeks shining with tears. 'Rin-chan, he can't just _stay_ there-'

'Pockets,' Rin snapped. Nagisa took several steps back.

'W-what?!'

'Rin...' Makoto's eyes went wide. 'You don't seriously think that Nagisa or I locked Rei in there-'

'We split up for twenty minutes,' Rin replied to Makoto, coldly. 'We were all in different places... it would be easy for one of us to shut Rei in this room and lock the door if we knew where the keys were!'

'B-but w-what if there's another person here...' Nagisa was crying. 'They could be running around-'

'Both of you, just empty your pockets! _Now_!'

Nagisa emptied his first, and the amount of junk Rin had to sift through was ridiculous. There were toffees, tissues, a disused train ticket from last month, an elastic band and two spotted paperclips, his cell phone, loose change with more candy, as well as-for some reason-a roll with jam and strawberry swirls in a plastic bag. Makoto's pockets were simpler as they contained just his house key and cell phone.

'Aren't you going to do yours?' Makoto asked. Rin rolled his eyes in annoyance but took out his wallet and cell phone... he didn't show them the flip-up knife.

'Did you locate the key?' Rei asked nervously.

'I... not yet,' Rin replied. He was scared, now; he didn't know what to do. Fear was threading through his veins like ice.

'We can't _leave him_!' Nagisa wailed. 'What if there is another person here and they come back for Rei-chan?!'

'If someone wanted Rei dead, they would have killed him instead of locking him in the room!' Makoto replied-voice rising. 'O-or they would kill him and lock in the body... why would they leave Rei here to yell at us and tell us where he is? We all have to get back to Iwatobi and call for help-'

'A-another person could want to make their presence known... Mako-chan, this could be part of a trap! Someone should _stay here_ with Rei-chan, whilst the other one goes for help-'

'Then why don't you stay here?' Makoto yelled, panicking. 'Nagisa, you just said that the person who locked Rei in that room might come back again, but if they do, t-the person with Rei would have to deal with that situation-'

'Rei,' Rin's voice was calm as he spoke. 'Are you safe?'

'I-I believe so...' Rei replied. 'Although, it's quite... unnerving... it's pitch black, so I'm using the light of my cell phone. It's peculiar, but... I feel scared-'

'It's going to be okay,' Rin said, quietly. 'Are you alone?'

'Y-yes... I've checked everything.'

'Everything?'

'The boiler, pipes and cupboards... I-I've been moving around slowly and shining the light of my phone on objects, but there seems to be nothing unusual. There doesn't seem to be any hatches in the floor or doors that I can see... I appear to be completely closed off.'

'That's good and bad,' Rin muttered, because noone could get to Rei, but on the flip side he couldn't get out, either. 'Just try and stay calm. Nagisa, Makoto-you both need to go back to the beach. Look out for Sasabe, or any boats that go past and get yourselves back to Iwatobi then call the police: they can break down the door and get Rei out.'

'And what about you?' Makoto asked.

'I'm staying here: I'm finding Haru.'

Makoto seemed taken aback.

'The _police_ can do that when they get here-Rin, you don't even know that Haru was definitely here! You're so_ obsessed _with finding him that you can't think logically... keep going and you might _die_ here and I don't want that... Rin, _please_!'

'Mako-chan is right,' Nagisa nodded. 'Rin-chan, you can't stay by yourself-'

'I can,' Rin interrupted. 'Sorry... but I'm the only person I can trust. If one of you leaves, then you may seal this tomb and trap Rei, me and the other here to die, so both of you have to go- that way, you can watch each other.'

'I can't believe you're still doing this!' Makoto cried. 'Rin, you don't have any reason for this suspicion! Nagisa and I... we_ loved _Haru!'

'It's not just you two that I don't trust,' Rin answered, frowning. 'Rei is suspicious, too. He could have become friends with both of you just after Haru's disappearance so he'd get to hear any news... or he could have locked himself in the boiler room to cast suspicion that one of you shut him in there, or that there may be another person here-'

'I can't listen to this,' Makoto squeezed his eyes shut. 'Rin... the one casing suspicion is_ you_! Tomorrow night, Sasabe will come back to collect us so if it will make you happy, we'll explore the rest of this place to try and find Haru before then! If we don't, we have to go back to the beach; all of us. We have to get help for Rei...'

Rin couldn't find any grounds on which to disagree with that suggestion so he nodded, and Nagisa wiped his eyes before saying a watery goodbye to Rei, Makoto promising they'd bring someone back as Rei did his best to make his voice seem brave from the other side of the door. They had no choice but to leave him.

It was in silence that Rin and the other two waked back to the main hall; Makoto's disapproval at Rin's decision to stay in this place was palpable and Nagisa gave the occasional sniff, which made it clear to Rin that the two of them didn't want to keep going. Rin himself was now feeling less than certain.

'We were going to check out the incinerator after Rei came back,' he begun. 'Uh... you two okay to do that now?'

Nagisa nodded-or maybe he just trembled-and Makoto gave something like a half-hearted shrug, so Rin decided to take the lead, pushing open the 'incinerator' door and finding himself in another corridor. It was short and narrow, but there was an iron door at the end bearing a yellow warning sign, closed by a heavy latch from the outside. When he opened the door, Makoto cried out and collapsed.

'R-Rin-chan!' Nagisa's voice was frantic. 'Shut the door now... PLEASE!'

The smell was what hit them first: it was a scent of decay that washed over them, except that for Rin it didn't register immediately.

The first thing he saw was the bodies.

There were two dead people deposited on the floor of the room in a pile, both coiled together like snakes. Each one of them seemed to have been mangled in some way; one of them was missing it's leg whilst the other had a gaping hole in his chest; softer organs like the eyes had been eaten away by bugs-Rin saw a centipede curling around in the white of an eye socket from a skull, and a swarm of bugs had blanketed the topmost corpse which was barley anything more than a skeleton. His own stomach heaved and he shut the door, fearing he'd be sick if he opened his mouth.

'Nagisa... take Makoto to the room with the beds,' Rin said, when his lips managed to unstick themselves. '...Make sure he lies down...'

'Rin-chan!' Nagisa grabbed his arm. 'You _can't_ mean-'

'I-I've gotta go in there...' Rin mumbled. 'I have to see if Haru is with them.'

He helped Nagisa take Makoto to the 'reception,' and laid him down on the sofa, whilst Nagisa stayed with Makoto to watch him. Rin then went back into the incinerator hall and sucked in a breath, staring at the door.

He'd known there was a possibility that Haru might not be alive. Ever since Rin had been faced with the prospect that Haru had disappeared, he'd been forced to consider that not all missing children were found-or found alive-but this was different for him, now; there was a chance that he might see a body. He didn't want to.

But if he didn't do this, he'd never know, and if Haru really had passed away then he deserved a better resting place than this.

So with trembling hands, Rin re-opened the door.

The smell of the corpses was suffocating and the sight of them was even worse. Most of each body had rotted away; Rin used his foot to nudge the top corpse away from the bottom one and examined them both, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw that both of the bodies belonged to adults... they were too big for Haru.

His stomach churned as he forced himself away, air rushing past his lips and as he closed the 'incinerator' door, only vaguely aware of his legs crumpling as he slid down against it. His gut twisted and his breath came in harsh pants, the sickening smell of bodies still clinging to the inside of his lungs.

'He's not there.'

Rin laughed dizzyingly after saying the words. He'd just looked at two cadavers and his head was thrumming, the urge to throw up rising, but he _wouldn't _let himself pass out. It took several moments for him to regain his trail of thought and calm down, setting a hand against the wall to steady himself as he stood.

'Neither of them were Haru...'

Neither Nagisa nor Makoto seemed to share his exhilaration-they didn't seem to understand how _important_ it was that Haru hadn't been in that room. Makoto had awoken and his face had turned a pale green-without Nagisa's arm around his shoulder, it seemed like he would slump.

'Rin...' he was trembling. 'You're terrifying... those corpses were bug infested, but you went back in to check them-'

'I promised Haru I'd come and find him when I got back,' Rin replied. 'So... I have to look for him. No matter what.'

'Stop it,' Makoto whimpered. 'Stop it. Stop speaking about Haru, like h-he's... it isn't fair...'

'What?'

'You know what!' Makoto's voice was desperate. 'You know... that even if Haru is here, then he can't be... h-he won't still be alive. This place is empty and abandoned, so if you find him, then... Haru will be... dead...'

'Shut up,' Rin growled-gutturally.

'This place is Hell, and H-Haru was taken here-'

Rin kicked the wall and Nagisa flinched. Makoto continued:

'Nobody has lived here, Rin! I saw two dead bodies today, just dropped on an incinerator floor like they were nothing, a-and I can't do this anymore! Do you think his kidnapper took Haru to this place and treated him like he was in a hotel?! I-it's an underground medical clinic... they c-cut Haru open, took out his organs and t-threw him in the incinerator to burn-'

'I said shut up,' Rin's voice was low and dangerous. His hands shook as he gripped Makoto's collar. 'Shut up-'

'He's dead, and now Rei's trapped-'

'SHUT THE FUCK UP-'

'STOP IT!'

Nagisa was sobbing _'Rin-chan, stop_,' '_Rin-chan, stop_!' over and over like a kid watching both of its parents fighting, helplessly caught between the two; Rin pulled back when he realised he was gripping Makoto's shirt. The room had become an empty expanse of air and all of the particles inside had seemed to become so thick and cloying that Rin couldn't _think-_

'Take it back,' he ordered Makoto, thickly. 'What you said about Haru... take it back.'

'I want to,' Makoto whispered. 'I want to- I just don't _feel_ what you feel, Rin... I don't think he's out there. I don't, and I don't want to see him dead... at least that way, I could still pretend that he's not-at least that way, I don't have to know for sure!'

Rin flushed, looking down at the floor.

'Sorry...' he mumbled. 'I-I didn't think... I know Haru means a lot to you, too. You too, Nagisa,' Rin looked between them. 'This my fault-I'm the one who decided to come here. I'm the one who distrusted all of you, when... we shouldn't be fighting like this. You're right-I definitely think you should go back to the beach. Both of you... but I have to stay.'

Nagisa's eyes were filled with sadness, but Makoto's gaze remained stern.

'Let's go, Nagisa,' he said, standing. Rin watched both of them leave then went back to check on Rei, reassuring him that Nagisa and Makoto had gone to get help then asking repeatedly if he could remember anything about how he'd come to be locked in that room. Rei's fear had dissipated slightly so he could think with more clarity, but he still couldn't tell Rin anything new; Rin made more attempts to open the door that were all unyielding, so-with a few final words of comfort-he thanked Rei and left.

There was one more door inside of '002' remaining that he hadn't explored... Rin was willing to bet that whatever was through there would lead him to Haru.

He walked slowly back through: '002,' then into the third, unexplored door to find that yet again, he was in another hallway. This 'clinic's' structure reminded Rin of a spiderweb: although there weren't many rooms, hallways connected each one to the next like threads, meaning that-although small- the entire facility could be stretched out underneath the half a mile-long islet. Rin was walking, when he heard a sound from behind him.

Running.

He drew out his retractable knife and put his thumb on the grip.

'_Nagisa_?'

'Mako-chan's waiting on the beach...' Nagisa said, quietly. 'It's just us.'

The optimistic note Nagisa had tried so hard to keep in his voice was gone... even his bright eyes had seemed to dull and now brimmed with unshed tears. Nagisa looked exhausted and scared... yet, he'd followed Rin here.

'You should have stayed on the beach...' Rin sighed. 'Nagisa, it might be dangerous down here. You know what kind of a place this is-'

'I _know_!' Nagisa clenched his fists. 'Rin-chan... that's why I couldn't leave you! Rei-chan... we never got Rei-chan out!'

'You don't understand,' Rin muttered. 'If Makoto shuts the tomb or doesn't call the police-'

'N-no,' Nagisa said-stubbornly. 'Rin-chan, I've known him since primary school and Mako-chan is caring. He wouldn't do that to us! Haru-chan...' he trailed away. 'You wouldn't know because you weren't there_,_ but when Haru-chan didn't come back to school, they put a white lily on his desk. I-if they put one on Rei-chan's desk, too... I couldn't bear it. That's why I had to come back. I c-can't lose any more of my friends...'

'Hey...' Rin came closer. 'It'll be okay. We're going to find Haru and Rei will get out of that room-I promise.'

Nagisa nodded.

'I just don't see it, Rin-chan,' he murmured, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. '...I don't see it.'

* * *

><p>The hallway they walked was gloomy and strange shapes seemed to stain the walls. Nagisa attempted to spark a conversation during the silence:<p>

'Say, Rin-chan... what was it like in Australia?'

'Australia?' Rin thought. 'It was... hot,' he shrugged, saying the thing that had left the most lasting impression. 'I don't know-I didn't go there to sightsee. I came back to Japan for a few weeks during each Christmas, but I didn't hear about Haru.'

Rin hadn't looked for any of his old friends when he'd come home to his family... he regretted that now. Not that he would have been able to do anything, but he wished he'd known sooner that Haru was gone. He wished he'd stayed in Japan for Haru's birthday and that they'd had a sleepover, because at least that way Haru wouldn't have disappeared-or, wouldn't have disappeared alone.

'What about you and Makoto? Are you guys still swimming?'

'N-not exactly...' Nagisa trailed away. 'Ever since the swim club closed, we don't have anywhere to go. Rei-chan and I are going to Iwatobi High with Mako-chan after summer, and I thought about starting a swim club there but... Mako-chan said we'd need at least another member to do that. And I don't think he wants to swim anymore- he said it wouldn't be the same.'

'Ah,' Rin replied.

'But I've been teaching Rei-chan to swim! Although... it hasn't been going very successfully. Sometimes I ask both of my older sisters to take us to the pool in the city-'

'Both of your sisters?' Rin turned to him. 'Nagisa... I thought you had three big sisters. There were three when I left for Australia.'

'Oh,' Nagisa's tone went quiet. 'A-actually... my parents split up. My Dad had to quit his job as a doctor at the Iwatobi clinic and move away... he took one of my sisters with him. I-I didn't know my dad for very long, so in that regard... Rin-chan, I'm just like you.'

_Not really_, Rin thought, because his Father was dead: his Father wasn't coming back, but Nagisa's was still out there somewhere. Rin felt uncomfortable with the conversation now that it had shifted back to him... he wished the silence would linger between them so he could think, but Nagisa had started talking again:

'Mako-chan... is really lucky,' he said-voice resonating with sadness. 'Rin-chan... do you know why Haru-chan was taken away? I think it's because he didn't have any parents or siblings, so there wasn't anyone to look for him when he was gone. You... you don't have all of your family, and I have a crack in the middle of mine, but Mako-chan is surrounded by people who love him,' he laughed quietly. 'It's sort of annoying... isn't it?'

A sharp pulse ran through the aneurysms in Rin's head and for a moment, every nerve in his body burned.

'Shit...' Rin muttered.

'Rin-chan?'

'I... It's nothing,' Rin touched his temple. '...A headache is coming.'

_Why?_

They'd now reached the end of the corridor and were standing in front of a black door, which was marked:

-OPERATING THEATRE-

For one moment, Rin's vision swayed threateningly. Then he grasped the handle of the door and twisted it open.

He was in a tiled shower room with a curtain dividing a quarter of it, and in that quarter was a clothes basket. Rin only had to glimpse at the clothes inside to know that they'd belonged to Haru.

'They're his...' Rin mumbled. 'I remember them...'

With the realisation came a wave of nausea that made Rin want to be sick; the idea that Haru had come to a place like this and had been made to undress caused his hands to shake around the edge of the basket. Taking in a breath, Rin examined the shower: there was no blood or evidence that violence had occurred. Admittedly, yes, the water would wash anything along those lines away, but the fact that Haru's clothes weren't ripped seemed to suggest that someone had taken him here then made him shower... and he'd complied.

'Rin-chan,' Nagisa said. 'There are a girl's clothes underneath Haru's. The label says they belong to a fourteen year old...'

'So, there was another girl here...' Rin muttered. He didn't like this: the fact that there was a pink teddy bear waiting on a hospital bed downstairs meant that a young girl had been brought here and had been expecting to undergo an operation. But... the teddy bear was still there. Had the operation failed?

His temples throbbed and Rin almost lost his footing-his headache was getting worse. He wanted to run and never come back to this islet, but he could feel that Haru was close and knew he'd never forgive himself if he ran scared now. To him, there was no other option but to keep going... no matter what the consequences.

He pushed open the double doors on the other side of the shower partition and stepped into the operating theatre.

* * *

><p>Rin closed his eyes as he entered the theatre and when he opened them, despite the fact that he was faced with two dead bodies again, he didn't feel as unnerved as the first time.<p>

There were two gurneys in the middle of the room and each one contained a corpse. The first was a grown man, who appeared to have collapsed over the side of the table and died there-a bone saw stuck out from his neck and bloodstains had dried into the collar of his white doctor's coat beneath it. Rin kicked the body to shift it, where it fell to the floor and he got a view of the man's face; he tried to recognise it, but it wasn't any good-decay had eroded it beyond resemblance. Still, Rin was struck with a sense of familiarity, as though he'd seen this person before... as thought he could recognise their deteriorating features. He'd glimpsed them in Iwatobi... perhaps spoken to them in passing...

No: his efforts were futile-he couldn't recall without a prompt. Rin looked away, focusing on the gurney.

A spread of surgical equipment had been placed on a wheeled tray nearby a rag and a bottle of chloroform; there was also a binder which was open at a page that displayed a crudely-drawn diagram showing the position of the lungs in a human body; Rin glanced at it, then at the man, and found himself laughing.

Rin had to laugh at the man's body because he finally understood what had happened; all of the pieces had immediately clicked into place, and Haru was _alive_: everything in the room proved it. If the man wasn't lying dead on the table then Rin knew Haru would be, and relief ran through him at that thought. With sudden composure, he turned.

Nagisa standing was over the second gurney, looking down at the body that lay on it. His face was white and even from across the room, Rin could see that he was trembling-he set a hand on down on Nagisa's shoulder.

'It's a dead body of a girl,' Rin told him. 'Don't look too closely at it.'

'She was around our age now when she died...' The words were barely more than a whisper. 'Rin-chan, she... she's...'

When she was alive, the girl on the gurney probably would have been very pretty. A sheet had been pulled up to her stomach and her long, fair hair had been swept behind her ears, an anaesthesia mask still on her face even though the machine had rusted and ceased functioning. Her chest had been cut open and exposed with medical wrap around the opening; she was missing her lungs, which were found black and rotten in a bin next to her table. There were drips of minerals nearby which were empty, although her arms were still hooked up to the machines.

_The person who took Haru was an illegal doctor. He wanted to transplant Haru's lungs into his girl, but the fact that she's lying here dead means it failed-Haru escaped. And because the doctor who was going to operate on Haru is lying there with a saw in his neck, that means..._

_Haru probably killed him... _

Rin swallowed.

_Haru... what happened that night, five years ago when you were taken?_

* * *

><p>.<p>

'Don't move. You'll make things difficult for yourself...'

It was Haru's eleventh birthday, and he was on a gurney.

He'd spent the day with Nagisa and Makoto, after Makoto had called Haru back to his own house to 'play videogames,' although his family had put together a party-Haru was grateful, although the fact that it was a yearly occurrence didn't mean it was surprise.

They'd gone swimming afterwards and he'd told Makoto he would run home, like usual, because Makoto's parents were giving him a lift back-he had to be home early for the summer festival. Makoto had asked Haru if he would be attending and if he wanted to come with them during the fishing competition that evening-Haru had said: 'probably.'

Then Makoto had left. After that, another person had asked him to join them for the fishing competition-they'd wanted him to come with them immediately. Haru had told them: 'no,' then they'd wrote the location of their boat down on a piece of paper then pressed it into his palm, 'just in case he changed his mind.' Haru's expression had told them he wouldn't, although he'd taken the paper.

His grandmother had been waiting when he'd arrived home afterwards.

She'd been an elderly woman, although age had never effected the fact that she'd been wise. She'd scolded Haru for being late then asked him to keep an eye on the mackerel she'd begun to cook him because after taking her pills, she'd started to feel dizzy; she'd had a heart condition and swore that the pills her doctor at the Iwatobi clinic had prescribed only made her body worse, as if someone had been _trying_ to kill her off. Haru had nodded, unsettled, and slipped upstairs to put the piece of paper he'd been given behind a brick in his wardrobe.

Then he'd heard a thump from downstairs and he known that his grandmother had collapsed.

When he found her unconscious on the kitchen floor, Haru had felt scared. He'd sat her up, turned off the stove and ran outside to get help, when a rag had clamped over his mouth and he'd breathed in chloroform.

He'd woken up on a boat.

His wrists had been bound and his mouth had been taped, and there had been a girl of about fourteen years old sitting next to him-there had also been a man in the boat, who had been holding the girls hands throughout the entire trip. He'd kept talking to the girl to reassure her and Haru had caught segments such as:

'...going to be okay...'

'...new set of lungs...'

'...perfect match...'

And:

'...Anesthesia. Won't feel it...'

They'd pulled up on a beach and Haru had been made to walk through a cave, into a tomb and through a medical facility. The man had removed his binds and told him to shower and wash, then he'd been forced to watch as the man had laid the girl down and hooked her up to painkillers and a life support machine before cutting her open. He'd proceeded to remove her lungs and wrap the hole.

Then he'd turned to Haru and told him to lie down, too.

He'd been dressed in a white robe, although the buttons on his chest were undone down the middle and it had been thin, so Haru had still felt the cold metal of the gurney as he'd climbed onto it, heart pounding in his ears. He'd known that if he'd protested, he'd be strapped down and that would only make things worse, so he'd tried to quiet himself and obey- pretended that his senses had been partially subdued from the chloroform and that he hadn't been aware of what had been about to happen. But he had been aware. And it had scared him-his chest had heaved.

'No...' the man had muttered, more to himself than Haru. 'No... you can't breathe heavily. Your lungs have to be in the best condition... you need to be alive and relaxed during the transplant for a better chance of success... I need to... transfer them immediately...'

The second time the chloroform rag came up to his mouth, Haru had seen it coming and he'd held his breath. He'd held it and held it until he'd felt faint, knowing that if he breathed in any of the chemical on the cloth this time then he'd never wake up again... he'd closed his eyes then eventually the rag had came away and the man had lowered him down. Haru had kept his eyes shut and forced his body to stop trembling-he'd forced himself to remain still. Then he'd heard the click of metal as the man examined a tray of tools and taken his chance.

He'd breathed out sharply and grabbed the first thing he could see from the tray-

-a bone saw -

And swung it, then he'd gotten up from the gurney and ran. Haru hadn't stopped to help the girl on the gurney beside him, because she'd been safe. The man had liked her- she'd come willingly on the boat, and she'd been the one who the man had said he would 'save.' Haru was different-he'd was disposable. Noone was going to save Haru, so he'd had to save himself.

He'd heard the man wail and was scared that he'd come running after him, so Haru hadn't stopped. He'd hurled open the door at the other end of the operating theatre and had been met by an expanse of corridor; his feet has slapped against the tiles as he'd ran, close to skidding.

His legs had ached. But he hadn't stopped.

.

* * *

><p>'Nagisa, we need to go.'<p>

Rin turned away from the gurney, feeling cold.

'We're close to finding Haru,' he said. 'I know. We're gonna see him soon.'

Nagisa tore his gaze away from the girl.

'D-do you think so?'

'Yeah.' Rin offered a hand. 'I can tell.'

The other door at the end of the operating theatre opened up into yet another tiled corridor that seemed to go on forever. As Rin stepped into it, his phone alarm jingled.

06/30/14

00:00AM

'It's Haru's birthday,' Rin mumbled, then sighed.

_I wanted to spend it with him..._

The corridor ahead contained three rooms which were all stretched out between each other, all of which Rin checked along the way: there was a toilet, another cupboard, and the last and most recent of the rooms was one that Rin supposed was linked to the incinerator, as it contained a large furnace and several chopped logs, and a crosscut hand saw. The doors had all been closed prior to Rin's entry and nothing inside of them contained any evidence that Haru had been in, so Rin put them out of his mind, letting Nagisa check each room after him as he progressed down the corridor.

'Nagisa?' he asked, after several moments. 'You okay?'

'U-uh, yeah...' Nagisa replied. 'I'm not... f-feeling so good...'

Nagisa had delayed behind Rin after the last room, although Rin couldn't blame him: he supposed that getting close to the body of the dead girl had really affected Nagisa, because he was happy go-lucky by nature... it made sense for him to feel broken down after looking at a rotting, dead young woman. He threw Nagisa a glance over his shoulder.

'Hey,' he smiled. 'We're almost there.'

'Yeah...'

'Keep following me- go at your own pace.'

'A-alright.'

'Makoto is probably back at Iwatobi by now, so the police will be here soon. The second we get back, you can go see a doc...'

_Doctor._

Rin stopped in the hallway.

'_Both of your sisters? Nagisa... I thought you had three big sisters. There were three when I left for Australia.'_

'_Oh. A-actually... my parents split up. My Dad had to quit his job as a doctor at the Iwatobi clinic and move away... he took one of my sisters with him.'_

Rin's brain started to whirl:

_If someone kidnapped Haru for a lung transplant, then they would have chosen Haru because of the condition of his lungs, which meant that the person who took him must have already had access to Haru's medical records... which meant they would have been someone like a doctor at a clinic._

_Which means that girl back there... she couldn't have been... could she?_

'Hey, Rin-chan...' Nagisa's voice from behind him was cold. 'You're so annoying... you couldn't leave this alone! To be honest, I never really you... die, okay?'

That was the last thing Rin heard before red shot over his vision and the saw from the furnace room sliced through his skin.


	4. Starry sky

_I don't... the world feels so distant..._

* * *

><p>Pain: Rin was aware of pain, cutting through his nerves and his composure shattered. His mouth was numb, jaw unable to shape words, his own breathing sounding muffled on his ears. It took him a moment to realize what had happened before he allowed himself to cry out:<p>

'AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH-'

A saw-he'd been hit with a saw. The teeth made a wet sound as they slid at force into his hip and Rin fell to the floor, blood oozing thickly from his side. The _pain _was intensive, white hot agony causing his body to twitch-

'_Rin-chan_,' the malice in Nagisa's voice was cutting. 'Why did you have to get involved?! E-everyone had left this alone, then you came along and forced it open again... you're the one who opened all of these wounds! Y-you're the one who got yourself into this mess, a-and that's why... you're going to die here, Rin...'

Heat. Heat was searing his body as blackness crept into his vision, spotting over his eyes and threatening to close them.

Not yet. He couldn't die yet.

He couldn't let go until he found out that Haru. Was. Safe-

'Did you kill Haru?' Rin demanded, squeezing the words out from between a cough, over blood. 'Haru got through all of this, so did you pretend to be his friend and then _fucking_ finish him off-'

'I-It wasn't my fault what happened to him!' Nagisa's voice sounded hysterical from above Rin, as if he wanted Rin to _understand _and _pity_ him-

'R-Rin-chan, that's the truth... I-I loved swimming with everyone! Five years ago, my Dad and one of my sisters disappeared on the same night he did... my M-mother said that Dad went to treat my big sisters lung condition, so... I thought they'd both gone abroad to a h-hospital... I thought they'd come back eventually! Then last year, I found a map in my Dad's belongings that led me to this place... I didn't know it had anything to do with Haru-chan until I saw his clothes in the b-basket-'

Rin's heartbeat was slowing. He felt himself going numb.

'Ma... ko... to-'

'I love him,' Nagisa whimpered. 'And Rei-chan, too... I love both of them... that's why I didn't want to hurt them, but you dragged them into this s-so now I have to! The keys to the rooms are behind the desk in reception... I-I shut Rei-chan in the boiler room behind maintenance and locked the door. I was going to do the same to you and Mako-chan when we were separated, but... Mako-chan got scared of the bugs in the kitchen, so... he came back to the reception early to wait. It was annoying...' the figure of Nagisa was trembling. 'But then you left me alone with him, and scaring Mako-chan was easy... all I had to do was tell him that my Dad was the one who took Haru-chan and tried to cut out his lungs. Then he collapsed... a-and I dragged him to the incinerator and pulled down the latch on the door. Rin-chan, he'll be really scared when he wakes up to find that he's locked inside that room with those two corpses, won't he?'

There were words forming in Rin's head such as: '_you're fucked up'_ and '_you were supposed to be our FRIEND_-' but instead he nuzzled his nose into the cold tiles, focusing his efforts on trying to keep himself conscious.

'Say, Rin-chan... I don't want to... I-I really don't want to... but I have to kill all of you. You have to understand that I can't let any of you live now you've seen this place, because you'd tell someone. I got rid of all the documents that tie it back to my Dad, but there are still fingerprints a-and his body is in the operating room... if the police knew, t-then my big sisters would lose their scholarship a-and I wouldn't be treated the same at school... we might even get arrested! A-and my mother...' he broke away. 'She would definitely be put in prison. She said we couldn't report Dad and my sister as missing people, because if the police investigated us then they'd find out what my Dad did, so I had to pretend that my parents split up and my he moved away! That's why I have to protect this place, because if I don't... my family will break even more-'

'Hng...' Rin murmured.

'W-what?'

'You're... a psycho. It must... run... in your genetics-'

'N-no!' Nagisa's tears became heavier, the high pitch of his voice rising. 'N-no, R-Rin-chan, you don't understand-this is what anyone who cares about their family would do! I never wanted this...' he was sobbing again. 'I didn't want to be like my Dad, but I have to protect my family... i-it's Haru-chan's fault! He's the one who killed my Dad and ran away... everything would be okay i-if he'd just let his lungs get transferred to my sister-'

'They _belonged _to _Haru_!' Rin's tears were bitter, full of anger and despair. 'Your family can't just take out his organs because they _want them._ Your Dad tried to murder him, but he got away-'

'No...' Nagisa replied, and every part of Rin became cold. 'Rin-chan... I don't know what happened to him, but when you think about it, isn't it obvious?! _Haru-chan_ ran out through this corridor now, and he got to the end of the islet around the caves. So he jumped into the ocean and tried to swim away... but you remember what Sasabe said... don't you?'

_'What's at the end of this place?' Rin had asked, remembering how Haru had told him he was: 'at the end,' in Rin's dream. The islet itself was shaped like a wide, horizontal line, and Sasabe's boat had anchored itself at the bottom to let them off._

_'Nothing is what!' Sasabe had replied. 'Just the back of some caves. It's all craggy rocks and whirlpools... terrible whirlpools-they'll suck you in and drown you.'_

'No...' Rin whispered. 'Please, _no_-'

'N-now you know...' Nagisa was shaking. 'That Haru-chan's body is in the _ocean_. Don't you feel better, Rin-chan? He got to die in the water, like he would have loved-'

Rin pressed his palm flat on the floor and pushed himself up, his whole body stinging as he grabbed Nagisa. Panic flashed in Nagisa's eyes and the saw swung back a second time and with another sickening _thwack _it cut through Rin's shoulder, creating a crimson slash as it sunk through the layers of skin and muscle, but Rin was prepared. He felt the handle of the retractable knife in his pocket and pushed Nagisa back as they stumbled against the nearest surface, bringing out the knife and pushing it in all the way, impaling Nagisa against the wall. For a few moments, Rin breathed harshly. Then he heard Nagisa choke and raise his head.

'In a different life...' Nagisa gave a soft smile, blood slipping out from between his lips as he spoke. 'I would have been born with different parents, and we could all swim together... Rin-chan.'

Rin staggered as he pulled out the knife, which was covered to the hilt in blood, then removed it and it clattered to the tiles, Nagisa's body slumping down against the wall. Rin was breathing heavily when he pulled back-

'_Shit_...'

The new wound in his shoulder was burning and his legs wouldn't obey his commands so he crumpled, gritting his teeth as hard as he could manage, trying not to scream through the pain. There was quiet-so much of it and he was alone, surrounded by white walls, collapsed in a slowly-expanding puddle of his own blood. He drew a shuddering breath then gripped the wall as he walked, slowly, to get to the corridors end.

At the end of the corridor was a set of six stairs and Rin dragged himself up them-it seemed never ending. If he were honest, he wanted to lie down but that wasn't an option-he still had to look for traces of Haru. He found himself thinking about finding Haru alive and laying his head in his arms, resting it on Haru's lap as he felt the breath leave his lips and Haru threaded his fingertips through his hair. He wanted to know that Haru was safe, then all of this-even if he died-wouldn't have been in vain... but Rin felt _exhausted. _He didn't know if he could go on. He limped as he kept walking, drops of blood creating a trail behind him as the corners of his vision begun to grow white. His head was thrumming. His vision was shaking.

_Haru... did you also walk down this hall? You must have been so afraid... you were only eleven years old and you'd just killed a person, but I know you didn't mean it. You were scared because you were about to be cut open, and there was no one there who could save you..._

Rin's hands were holding his body together, trying to keep in the blood that was spilling over the saw wound in his hip, but he knew he was failing. Tears washed the bloodstains from his cheeks, making streaks down his face and small circles on the floor tiles.

_There's a door at the end of the hall... Haru, did you ever find out what's beyond it? I'm sorry... I might not be able to... _

He reached for the handle and collapsed then everything went black.

* * *

><p><em>Rin...<em>

What?

_Are you going away?_

Away? No... Not yet. There's still something I need to do. There's still something I need to know...

* * *

><p><em>Gobackfiveyearsandthirteendaysfromtoday<em>

_I want to go back to the beach with Haru-_

* * *

><p>'Rin?'<p>

Eleven year old Haru stared down at Rin with wide eyes, and it took Rin a moment to realise that he was laying on sand. He blinked-squinting up at the sky-feeling the afternoon sun beating down on his skin and warming his body all over. They'd been swimming in the sea all afternoon and now Rin felt _hot_-he'd collapsed on the beach due to heatstroke momentarily to wake up with Haru leaning over him

'M'moo'kay,' Rin mumbled, rubbing his eyes with his fists. 'I'm okay.'

'...You were unconscious,' Haru said, in a flat voice that carried an undertone of relief. Rin laughed.

'Sorry, sorry. I guess I was being careless...'

He sat, shoulder to shoulder beside Haru on the bank of sand, looking out at the sea. There was the sound of waves crashing against each other in the distance but other than that, everything was still-Rin turned across to Haru, watching as his blue eyes stared ahead, odd strands of his dark hair lifted by the breeze.

'You have to go,' he told Rin.

'To Australia?'

'No,' Haru said. 'Away from this dream. You're dead. This is the effect of the oxygen leaving your brain. ...It can't last.'

'But... I-I don't _want_ to go back!' Rin snapped as he stood up. 'H-Haru, even if it's a dream, just let me stay... I'm _happy _like this-'

'You have to keep your promise,' Haru replied, then the figure of him seemed to blend into the blue sky as if he'd been there for just a single breath, a blink, a blip, and then he was gone. The ocean behind Rin came apart and the sand lifted up grain by grain to fly away, disappearing into the blackness that waited beyond the scope of Rin's vision. Then the blackness advanced until it swallowed Rin whole and everything was quiet. His world clicked out.

* * *

><p><em>Is this death? Its floaty...<em>

A wall: Rin could see a wall. A white, tiled wall, like the one in the hallway where he'd died... so, did this mean he was in the hallway where he'd died?

He'd promised to find Haru when he came back.

Rin stood.

His body didn't want to move and didn't look too great either, so Rin left it behind. He assumed his own form as he stood and when he looked down at the still-bleeding body beneath his feet, Rin felt... nothing. No regret, sadness or remorse-just nothing. He was incapable of a reaction.

_Oh-that's right: Haru is still out there. I never found out what happened..._

Rin didn't feel pain but this new body was strange. His wounds were gone and he couldn't touch objects, but seemed to melt right into them, as if he were out of sync with the world, suspended on a line between this one and the next. The door that Rin hadn't managed to open when he'd been alive he now melted through without effort, following a ladder to the top of a cave. He went through the cave, until he was faced with the outside... the beautiful, night-time outside.

He was standing before a bay.

There was a small, hidden beach at the end of the cave around the back of the underground clinic. Moonlight was shining down on the waves which rippled as they reflected the moon atop its surface; the night's sky seemed to be coloured a deep, seaweed green, with silver stars glinting from above. Rin's steps made no prints in the sand, and a soft wind that he couldn't feel stirred his hair. Ahead of him, standing in the water was the figure of... Haru.

_Haru... Haru's finally here._

'You're here,' Rin said.

Haru smiled.

'Yeah.'

The water seemed to wash right through Haru's feet, and he didn't look wet from standing in it so Rin supposed that he'd also died... deep down, Rin had probably always subconsciously known. It still hurt.

'I'm sorry.' The words fell from Rin's tongue. 'I could have help you-'

'Rin,' Haru cut him off. 'This shore... it's like the one before you went to Australia. Do you remember?'

Rin didn't pass through Haru when he touched him; Haru seemed to be different to the rest of the world-maybe because he was no longer a physical part of it. Rin could feel the spark of Haru's presence as he came close, his spirit seemingly melting against Rin's own as Rin held Haru and finally felt his closeness. With it came a sense of calm, because earlier that day Haru had been the one thing in the world that Rin couldn't touch or feel-and now he could. He'd given up the ability to touch everything else just so that he could reach Haru-just so that they could reach each other.

'I wanted to see you...' Haru said. 'So I waited. I kept trying to reach you-'

'I know,' Rin nodded. 'And I felt you. You got through.'

Rin tightened his grip on Haru's back and buried his head in the other's shoulders, squeezing his body.

_Haru..._

Rin squeezed his eyes shut and held tight.

_I suppose I found you in the end._

**END**

* * *

><p><strong>Luuka:<strong> oh i'm broken

Thank you for reading!

Because this is short and I don't want to expand it, there may be several things that may not be implicit, so let me know if you want me to go through them in a pm.

The fic ends with this, Makoto and Rei's resolution is ambiguous. As Nagisa shut them in rooms, I think Sasabe would contact the police when none of them arrived to be collected, so the islet would be searched, the open tomb would be found and Makoto and Rei would be recovered traumatised but alive with the truth. I'd also like to think that after Haru's soul was satisfied, his body would wash up on Iwatobi so he could be buried and his mystery would be put to rest. After that, he and Rin could go into the afterlife together.


End file.
